It Doesn't Matter
by sasukewasameme
Summary: Sasuke was expelled from school and would now have to go to an alternative school for problem teens. He'd rather drop out, really, but Itachi wouldn't let him. Not a smut fic Not a comedy May have Major Character Death Warnings: Heavy Angst, Self harm, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts, violence, and Cross-Posted from Archive Of Our Own https:/archiveofourown
1. Chapter 1

Sasuke was never a morning riser. In fact, he was rather crabby when he woke up. Sometimes, he would swear Itachi was out to get him when he woke him up too early. Today was one such day. He heard Itachi calling him but wasn't awake enough to move.

When Itachi walked into his room, he turned the ceiling fan's light on. Sasuke groaned. Why would Itachi do such a thing? Itachi really must have been out to get him; he never turns Sasuke's light on when he wakes him up. He knew Sasuke liked his room to be private and hated when people walked all the way in.

"Sasuke," Itachi said in a stern voice. This alarmed Sasuke, although he wouldn't show it. So, he decided it would be best not to piss Itachi off even more by ignoring him. He sighed and forced himself to sit up. "What," he half-said, half-asked.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Itachi asked, holding a paper out in front of him. Sasuke, who's brain was foggy from sleep just a second ago, felt completely awake now. It didn't last long as his usual I-don't-give-a-fuck feeling kicked in.

"They called you and you didn't answer," he answered defensively. Itachi sighed and Sasuke knew he won the argument. The feeling of accomplishment didn't come and felt a bit guilty instead. "Sorry I didn't tell you that I got expelled." He avoided Itachi's eyes.

"Well, what are you going to do now? That was the only high school that's in our area." Sasuke honestly didn't know what he wanted him to say. "Well, I guess I'll just get my G.E.D." One look at Itachi's face and he knew it wasn't going to happen.

"There's another school that you can go to but it's not guaranteed you'd be able to get." Sasuke was praying he wouldn't get sent to some private school so he good be influenced by the goody two shoes. "What are you talking about?" He asked in slight dread.

"It's an alternative school. Kakashi teaches there. It's for teens with issues that make them unable to attend a regular school." Sasuke, not getting the whole picture yet, asked "Wait, so everyone there was expelled?" Itachi answered.

"No. Not all of them. Some have social anxiety that prevents them from attending a regular school while others are legally required to attend by law because of getting in legal trouble. Some may have been expelled and others may have failed most of their classes in their last cool and need different teaching methods than what's taught at a regular school."

Sasuke felt frustrated and just answered with an annoyed "hn." Realizing he had no way out of this, he asked, "So, when does it start?" Itachi took his phone out and texted Kakashi. There was the sound of a notification and he replied, "You have to do an interview to get in as there are certain requirements to be considered unfit for a regular school. The interview is on Tuesday of next week. If you get in, you start school the following Monday."

Itachi looked into Sasuke's eyes and, with another stern voice, said "Don't have an attitude when talking to the principal. This is your last chance at getting a high school diploma. The school is called Konoha High School" Sasuke felt annoyed over the fact he was getting a lecture.

"Think about it. If you get your diploma, you'll be able to have any job of your choice as long as you work towards it. You don't have near as many job options when you drop out. I want you to provide well for yourself." Itachi made a look that said he was waiting for Sasuke to reply.

Sasuke frowned and said "fine" in an obviously annoyed voice. Itachi gave a look of approval and walked out of his room, closing the door behind him. Sasuke figured he could probably still go back to sleep if he tried. So, he got in his bed, pulled his covers over him, laid down, and waited for sleep to take him.

It didn't take long for Wednesday to come. Sasuke wondered what the school would be like, how many people went to the school, and what kind of teachers were there. Knowing Kakashi, the school probably had low standards. Kakashi was the type of teacher that would cuss in class, did work on his time because he really didn't give a fuck, and wore a mask and the clothes he wanted because fuck the dress code.

Sasuke kept telling himself he didn't care about the new school (he'd be expelled anyway) but found himself thinking about it. If it was any other school, he wouldn't wonder about it at all but he'd never been to a school like this. A school for problem kids.

When it was only 20 minutes before the interview, he dressed how he always had. He put in all the silver earrings he had along his very pierced ear and put his black tunnels in his stretched ears. He put a black hoodie over his black long-sleeved shirt and put black pants on with black shoes. After styling his hair by sticking the back of it out and keeping the bangs in the front, he was ready.

Kakashi drove him to the school because Itachi was at work. "The principal is Ms.Tsunade. If you respect her, she will respect you. If you throw an attitude, she'll reflect it back tenfold. You have been warned."

Sasuke had never met a principal that would angrily argue with a student like that so he decided Kakashi was exaggerating. Still, he would be respectful because Itachi would be disappointed if he didn't get in.

"The interview itself isn't very hard. The word interview can make students nervous. Really, they hand you a paper, you check all the regular school complications that apply to you, and you get called into the office to meet with Ms. Tsunade." Sasuke acknowledged what Kakashi was saying with a "hn."

Kakashi continued, "Once you get into the office, Tsunade will ask you why you need to go to the school. You need to sound as if you both need to and want to be there. If it sounds like you don't want to be there, she won't let you be there. Since all the students are there for different reasons, punishment is really quite lenient. So, you're not likely to get expelled."

Sasuke didn't know if the low chance of getting expelled was good or bad. Kakashi stopped the car at a small building with other small buildings to the left. Overall, there were three buildings with the one in the front being much bigger than the ones to the left. "The office is this way," Kakashi said while walking to the biggest building.

"I made sure to get us here early. First come, first serve." When Kakashi opened the door, Sasuke was surprised to find that the inside looked bigger than it seemed on the outside. It was still at least 5 times smaller than a regular school but you could fit over 200 people if you really tried.

There was a sign in the hall that said 'SIGN UPS' and it pointed forward to a table with papers. There was another sign that said 'INTERVIEWS' that pointed in the direction of a hall that went to the right. Kakashi led Sasuke to the hall that went right and he saw that there were empty benches and papers on a table that was to the right of the benches.

A small lady with short brown hair was standing behind the table. When she noticed them, she called out to them. "Are you here for the interview?" Sasuke walked towards the table to see what he'd have to fill out.

The lady looked behind him in recognition. "Oh. Kakashi! Is he your nephew?" Kakashi smiled behind his mask and shook his head. "No. He's my best friend's brother. His name is Sasuke and he's hoping to get in to the school." She looked at Sasuke, smiled and put her hand out. "Hi, Sasuke. I'm Ms.Shizune." Sasuke half heartedly shook her hand.

"Let me get the papers together really quick and when you get them filled out, you'll be ready for the interview." Sasuke waited for her to put the papers together and when she finally finished, she directed him to the benches. The paperwork was boring but mostly easy.

There was so much paperwork that it took 20 minutes to fill it all out. When he finished, he gave the paperwork to Shizune. "Okay," said Shizune, "you're all set. Ready for the interview?" He nodded once. "Okay. Follow me," she replied and led them to a door not far from the table. "Here you go." She opened the door. "Good luck." Then, she closed it behind them.

The room was quite small and there was a table set out with papers on it. He was surprised to see that the woman who must've been the principal was letting her cleavage show. So, he thought, this is definitely the type of principal who would hire a teacher like Kakashi.

He walked to the table and shook her hand as if he meant it when she held her hand out. She looked at Kakashi and, surprisingly, didn't ask how he knew Sasuke. Maybe she already knew the answer to that. She gestured for them to take a seat so they did. "So, why do you come here today for this interview?"

Sasuke explained how he got expelled and then Tsunade asked how he thinks the school can help him with bettering his behavior. "By understanding that I'm not trying to be rude," he replied. She started explaining the rules and schedule. It was only halfway through her explaining that he realized he got in.

When she was done explaining, she handed him a map and smiled. "I think you'll fit in just fine here. Your schedule will be ready on Monday so get here early so you can review it. Feel free to check the classrooms, if you'd like." Sasuke nodded. "Okay, Sasuke. I'll see you on Monday." They shook hands one more time and Kakashi and Sasuke left the room.

Shizune was busy putting papers together for -wait- Sasuke looked closer at the person she was getting papers for. The guy was blond, tall, and had 3 scars like whiskers on both sides of his cheeks. There was no mistaking it -it was Naruto. Sasuke looked away and walked as fast as he could out of the school so he wouldn't have to deal with some huge reunion.

"Want to check out the classrooms?" Kakashi asked. "No," Sasuke said rather quickly. He looked at Kakashi only to see him smiling. The bastard was making fun of him. Sasuke scowled and got in the car. "I want to go home." Kakashi looked at him and decided not to say anything that would piss him off. "Alright," he said and got in the car.

When Kakashi dropped Sasuke off, he went straight to his room, took a couple sleeping pills so he could sleep the stress away, and laid down. He fell asleep in 5 minutes.


	2. First Day Of School

Time flew by so fast that Sasuke was almost scared when Itachi woke him up early. He realized that the fact he'd now have to go to Konoha High School hadn't quite sunken in yet.

He didn't really care about it before but now he would have to try to find his way around the school without knowledge of where any classes were. Then, his feeling of not giving a fuck kicked in and he decided to just wait and see what happens.

He groaned before getting up and taking a shower. Then, he got dressed in a black sweater, black jeans, black shoes, and put his earrings in.

Because he wasn't sure what all he would need to bring, he just stuffed notebooks, pencils, and folders inside his black backpack.

It was 7:57 and school would start at 8:30 so he just sat down on his bed and listened to music. While listening to music, he started thinking about middle school.

When he was in middle school, he went to Green Leaf Middle School but Itachi wanted to move to a nicer neighborhood so he had to go to Forest High School for 9th and 10th grade until he was expelled the next year. He went to Green Leaf Middle School with Naruto. They got into fights all the time and hated each other. At the same time, they understood each other so well.

Sasuke would often come home with bruises and Itachi would ask if he was getting bullied. Sasuke denied it. One day when Itachi had a day off, he saw Naruto and Sasuke fighting with each other. The fight clearly wasn't one sided and a bunch of kids were rooting for Sasuke to win.

That was when he understood that Sasuke had bruises because of his fights with Naruto. But then, Naruto had bruises as well.

Itachi figured Sasuke was getting his angst out by fighting with someone who was getting their angst out by fighting him.

So, Itachi decided to let it be and to keep watch so it wouldn't get out of hand. Sasuke wasn't sure how he should approach Naruto when he'd see him at the school. Would they fight some more or would they just be cool with each other? Sasuke decided he'd let Naruto decide whether they're going to fight or not.

He checked the time.

It was 8:20. Sasuke was frustrated. Where the hell was Kakashi?! He was supposed to pick him up 10 minutes ago. Of all the times to be late...

Sasuke left his room, walked to the front door, and stepped outside. The chill of the morning hit his face. He checked the time again. 8:24. Just then, he spotted a silver car in the corner of his eye. He looked up to get a clear view.

It was Kakashi's car. When the car reached Sasuke's house, he fast walked towards it. When he got to the car, he threw the door open and demanded, "Why were you so late?!" Kakashi clearly didn't care which pissed him off more.

"Sorry, sorry. A herd of cows were crossing the road while I was driving to your house. I didn't want to kill-" "I don't care about your stupid excuse. Just drive," Sasuke interrupted, and rather rudely, if you were to ask Kakashi.

It took 12 minutes to get there. It was his first day and he was already late. At least, he could blame it on Kakashi. He honestly wasn't sure how Kakashi hadn't gotten fired for being late all the time.

When they stepped into the largest building, Sasuke felt relieved to know that there were many people in line getting their schedules. If everyone was late then being late would be on time.

New dread filled Sasuke as he saw many familiar faces. He scowled. He didn't want to have to deal with the same annoying people from middle school. Unfortunately, fate wasn't on his side.

"Sasuke! It's been a while since I've seen you!" He heard a loud female voice to the front of the line. The line of people turned to him and he ignored them. He looked for the owner of the voice.

And found it. It was Sakura and she was smiling at him. She was very skinny and her smile looked forced against her sickly skin. Ino was coming up next to hear with a frown on her face. Ino looked just as sick as Sakura. Sasuke decided not to make any assumptions about why they looked so sick.

Besides, these people were all annoying and he didn't want anything to do with them.

"What the hell, Saskura," Ino demanded and whispered into Sakura's ear. "What do you mean? I never said that," Sakura replied angrily. They clearly didn't care that they lost their spot in line. "Whatever," Said Ino. "Let's just get back in line."

They went to the back of the line and as the line kept moving forward, it was almost Sasuke's turn to get his schedule. Shizune was the one giving everyone their schedules. The guy in front of him was wearing a strange grey trenchcoat-like coat with sunglasses. Either he was really drunk and put sunclasses on to hide it or his fashion was just.. interesting.

It was the sunglasses guy's turn. "Here's your schedule," Shizune said. "Your homeroom is with Kakashi Hatake. Go through the cafeteria this way. There will be a hall that leads out of the cafeteria. Kakashi's room is 1st to the left."

Sunglasses guy nodded and presumably followed the instructions she gave him. "Hi," Shizune said to Sasuke as he moved up. "Last name?" "Uchiha," Sasuke replied.

She rummaged through some papers, found his schedule, and handed it to him. "Here you go.

Your homeroom is with Kakashi Hatake." She gave him the same instruction as sunglasses guy. While going through the cafeteria, Sasuke wondered how everyone could have lunch together; the cafeteria was very small, with only 9 long lunch tables.

There was only one door to the left in the hall. Considering how small the cafeteria was, he wondered how small the classroom would be. He opened the tan door only to find that the classroom really was pretty average by size. And that the classroom was pretty full.

Sasuke sighed, feeling stressed. He always hated school. Getting up early, being give homework he honestly didn't give a shit about, and wasting time listening to lessons he'll forget in a week. He always listened to music when in class. That was the best way to deal with the bullshittery that was school.

After finding a table furthest to the back, he got a closer look at the people he'd have to spend at least an hour with every school day for the rest of the year. He frowned when he saw many people he went to middle school with.

They'd definitely grown as it was hard to recognize some. Kiba no longer had long hair and he had a dog with him. Hinata's hair was longer. Sakura and Ino looked sickly and skinnier than before. Shikamaru honestly looked the same, other than being taller and having grown into his face more. Neji looked more mature and his hair was longer than before.

Rock Lee looked even more energized than before, if that was possible. He already felt tired, thinking about how people were probably going to bother him. It was common knowledge that his parents were killed and he hated how whenever a stranger asked about his parents, people would look at him like he would break.

As if people talking to him was bad enough, they now wanted to feel bad for him. He continued looking around the room to see who else he would have to be with. There was a girl he didn't recognize with brown hair. She was sitting with Naji and Rock Lee. Then, she felt slightly familiar. He just hadn't seen her around much in middle school. He didn't even know her name.

He got startled by the door opening loudly. He looked at the door's entrance to glare at the person who decided to be annoyingly loud, only to regret it when he saw who it was.

"Sasuke! Who knew you'd be here, bastard. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not surprised. With that attitude of yours -" Sasuke interrupted him. "Shut up, Naruto."

He wanted Naruto to just shut up so that attention wouldn't be drawn to him. But, it was too late. Now, everyone was looking at them. Naruto, surprisingly, smiled and laughed. Was he joking when he was yelling at him? "It's been a while, Sasuke."

Then, Kiba decided to walk over to them. "Heh. Remember when you guys used to fight all the time in middle school? That was hilarious."

Sasuke frowned in annoyance and just wanted everyone to leave him alone.

Sasuke blocked everyone out and stared off into space. He was starting to feel like shit and wanted the day to end already so he could just take some sleeping pills to sleep.

Naruto sat next to him and he didn't realize for 10 minutes because he was so spaced out. And, apparently, three people had entered the room during that time.

They sat at a table together and looked like your signature delinquents. There was girl with red hair glasses, and a belly shirt. To her right, there was a guy with white hair that had blue tips. The guy to her left had orange hair and had the bodily build of a football player; he was large.

Naruto looked to where Sasuke was looking and clearly found something funny. "Hey, Sasuke. I think I found your long lost emo siblings." Naruto laughed at his joke and Sasuke glared at him.

Sasuke heard Ino and Sakura talking about how it was stupid that they got up and came early, yet the teacher was "literally 20 minutes late." Kiba agreed.

Sasuke was mostly used to Kakashi being late. He only ever got pissed when he was late for important events.

And, besides, if the teacher wasn't there, they could do literally whatever they wanted. They could pull out a gun and not get in trouble because the teacher is gone. Well, as long as there were no snitches.

A few minutes later, Kakashi entered the room. "Sorry I was late, everyone," he said while walking up to the board. "There was a litter of aggressive cats coming after me." Sasuke wanted to snicker at the people who took his excuse seriously. (Rock Lee)

"I want everyone to introduce themselves, starting him." He pointed at Shikamaru, who was sitting in the first seat of the first table at the front. Through the introductions, Sasuke learned that the girl with brown hair was Tenten and the sunglasses guy was Shino.

He didn't recognize Shino from his outfit covering his jacket and sunglasses covering his face. The three people sitting in the table to the left were Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo. Suigetsu was the guy with white hair that had blue tips and he seemed to look down on everyone.

Karin, who had red hair and glasses had a strong personality and wasn't afraid to say her opinion on things. Jugo, who had orange hair and was a big guy seem chilled out.

Sasuke didn't know why Jugo hung out with Karin and Suigetsu at first. After a bit, he realized he didn't seem to have a particular liking for anyone else and seemed to genuinely like hanging out with Suigetsu and Karin.

They were in homeroom for 2

hours because it was the first day. Naruto tried talking to Sasuke but he had his earbuds in and so he stuck with just calling him a bastard.

Sasuke listened to what he needed to know and tuned everything else out. The year was going to be worse than he thought.

Classes rotated meaning that rather than having different periods with different people and teachers, they'd have every period with the same people and different teachers.

So, while Kakashi's class went to math, Ms. Kurenai's class went to English. Then, Asuma's class would go to Science, and so forth. So, now Sasuke would have to be around these people all day every school day.

Not only that but they'd have to go to counseling as a class on Fridays. Sasuke grimaced at the fact that he wouldn't have a choice but to listen to other peoples' problems.

Sasuke was starting to feel like shit even worse than before and hoped he wouldn't have P.E. because he had no energy. He berated himself for not giving a shit enough to check the schedule before.

At 10:30, homeroom finally ended. Sasuke made sure to hurry out the door so no one would try talking to him. He walked out of the building and even though he could've just followed everyone else to the next class, he wanted to see if he had P.E. He pulled his schedule out of his backpack and skimmed over it.

He felt so disappointed when he saw that they had P.E. third period. If he was lucky, they'd just get an intro to the class and they wouldn't have to do anything. He had 2 minutes to get to the next class. The next class was English with Ms. Kurenai.

Sasuke got there a bit late but the teacher didn't seem to care much. It was the first day, after all. He took a seat next to Shikamaru. Shikamaru generally didn't talk a lot and knew when people didn't want to be talked to.

He figured he'd have a relatively peaceful year if he tried sitting by Shikamaru most of the time. The guy was smart, even though he never reall cared to show it. The only way you could tell how intelligent he was, was by his good test scores unaffected by his laziness.

The classes went by pretty fast and it was lunch before Sasuke knew it. Maybe time was passing by fast because it was the first. Maybe it was because he was spacing out and not paying attention most of the time. He didn't know which.

There was only one other class having lunch with them. It was Ms. Kurenai's class. They had A lunch. Sasuke stepped into line behind the guy named Suigetsu. Suigetsu smirked at Sasuke. Sasuke frowned. Suigetsu smiled mischievously.

"Dude. You look hella depressed. Need a pick-me-up?" Sasuke knew he was talking about drugs. He'd never done drugs before; they were expensive and he'd heard plenty stories of people getting tricked out of their money. "No," Sasuke said, frown deeper than before.

Suigetsu gave him a look that said he didn't believe him and chuckled. "You've never done drugs, have you? You'll never know if you never try. You can't classify all drugs in the same category because so many drugs that give so many different effects." Sasuke got what he was saying but didn't agree.

If nothing else, drugs were illegal. He could imagine the look of disappointment on Itachi's face. Not only that but if he did drugs at school, there was a fair enough chance Kakashi would find out. If Kakashi found out, he would very likely tell Itachi.

Suigetsu decided to let it go. "Wanna sit with us?" Suigetsu asked. When he saw that Sasuke was going to decline the offer, he said, "Promise we won't make you talk." Sasuke considered it. If he sat by Shikamaru, there was a large chance that Naruto or someone else would try talking to him.

Then, when he wouldn't answer, they would bother him even more by getting upset. If he sat with Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo, no one would bother him because they'd be too scared to approach them. Not only that but Suigetsu said they wouldn't make him talk which either means they wouldn't get upset if they talked to him and he didn't reply, or it means they wouldn't talk at all.

Both of those possibilities were better than sitting with people who probably would talk with him and then get upset when he didn't reply. "Fine," Sasuke said. Suigetsu smiled. When they got their food, Suigetsu started walking out of the cafeteria.

Sasuke was confused but caught on quickly. They weren't even going to eat in the cafeteria. Suigetsu led him to the back of the building and started walking across the street. Sasuke stopped for a second, wondering if this was allowed.

He wasn't a goody-two-shoes but he couldn't get expelled, or else Itachi would be upset. But, then he decided that if they got in trouble, he'd say he wasn't sure what was allowed because it was the first day.

So, he let curiosity overcome him and crossed the street with Suigetsu. There were houses across from behind the school. Sasuke figured they were going to one of those. Probably, one of them lived right next to the school and went home because they were bored.

He was right and wrong. They went down the street to the left of the school and Sasuke wondered what time it was. But soon, Suigetsu stopped in front of this house with some broken windows and white paint. There were a few spots of blue paint but most of it was chipped.

Sasuke thought it was gonna take forever to get there and Suigetsu was going to get them in trouble but when he checked his phone, he saw it'd only been 5 minutes. "Well, this is the place. What d'you think?"

The house was surprisingly isolated and was really more like a rather large shack. Police wouldn't waste their time trying to catch kids and hobos in abandoned houses and most people wouldn't randomly go to an abandoned house. Especially not by themselves.

Ideally, it was the perfect place to be at. You could do whatever you want without being bothered by a teacher or someone else and you wouldn't have to be surrounded by a bunch of people. So, for the first time being openly nice to someone today, Sasuke replied with a "hn."

That was the closest Sasuke could get to complimenting the nice find. Suigetsu smiled and walked up to the door. The door flung open in his face, though, and the girl, Karin, laughed in success. "You bitch! And what's with that door? They're not supposed to open that way!"

Karin shrugged and said something about the screws being loose. Sasuke walked in after Suigetsu. The house was dark, which made Sasuke as content as he could be while feeling like shit. Suigetsu and Karin sat down on either side of Jugo, with Suigetsu ti the right.

Sasuke sat next to the door, making sure not to accidentally lean against the door so he wouldn't fall back. "Let's smoke," said Suigetsu. Sasuke wanted to sigh in annoyance but decided he'd sighed too much for the day. So, instead, he settled with frowning at Suigetsu again.

"What?" Suigetsu asked, almost defensively. "It's been a long day and I feel like shit. I need to smoke." Sasuke understood feeling like shit really bad and needing to turn to something to make it better so he didn't reply. Karin pulled a pulled a pipe out of her backpack and handed it to Suigetsu.

Suigetsu took out a black lighter and checked in the bowl to see if there was anything in it.

Meanwhile, Karin was pulling out a bag of green stuff, which was presumably marijuana. She pulled apart some of the weed because the bowl was too small to fit all of it in and placed it in the bowl after taking the pipe back from Suigetsu.

After Karin took out her pink lighter and Jugo took out his camo lighter, they started passing the pipe around to each other and smoking. Sasuke watched as they got high and hoped they wouldn't get him expelled.

After 10 minutes, they were high but able to pretend they weren't. Sasuke was grateful for the fact that they weren't complete idiots. There was only 7 minutes until their next class started. Karin put the pipe and weed away, then sprayed air freshener on the three of them.

She asked if Sasuke wanted her to put air freshener on him too but he glared at the bottle so she took that as a no. Their next class was unfortunately P.E. When they got to the class, Sasuke thought about it and decided to sit next to them.

They left him alone for the most part when they hung out at the abandoned house so he decided he'd stick with them until they got annoying. Luckily, they didn't do anything physical in P.E. and they just got an intro to the class.The last few classes were pretty uneventful. Everyone was too busy trying to figure everything out to talk a lot.

Sasuke knew this would change quickly as they got bored in class and would get used to how everything goes. He felt relieved when there was only 10 minutes left of class.

So, he picked two long songs to listen to and before he knew it, everyone was out the door.

Sasuke walked to Kakashi's classroom so he could get a ride home. Kakashi wasn't the type to stay after school. If he had homework to grade, he'd do it home. "Ah," Kakashi acknowledged Sasuke, "Ready to go home?" Sasuke wanted to reply sarcastically but had no energy so he said nothing.

Kakashi grabbed a small black back that he had and led Sasuke out the door. After going outside in getting in Kakashi's car, Kakashi asked Sasuke how the first day was. Once again, Sasuke wanted to reply sarcastically but had no energy. Again, silence.

"Well, you'll get used to the school eventually. And, you have me as your homeroom which means you're going to have fun." Sasuke didn't know if Kakashi himself was being sarcastic or if he was serious. Even though he'd known Kakashi for years, his humor often confused him.

When Kakashi stopped at Sasuke's house, he had the first huge surge of energy for the day. Swinging the car door open, he closed it quickly and fast walked to the front door. In a matter of seconds, he'd already taken a few sleeping pills and laid down in bed. Rather than thinking about how terrible he felt, he slept it all away.


	3. The Beginning Of Something More

When Sasuke woke up the next day, he started feeling like shit after only 10 minutes. Needless to say, he wanted to go back to sleep. He wondered how he was going to make it through the year like this. Sasuke didn't want to be too incredibly pessimistic but he started thinking about how miserable the world was.

Humans only became friends with others because they, themselves were lonely. For most people, friends were a source of entertainment.

Sasuke saw humans as selfish. He himself didn't care much about many people other than his brother. It was the same for Itachi. Sure, there were people like Kakashi who would be upset if he were to die but they'd get over it quickly. He was tired of feeling like shit all the time.

Thoughts of death hit Sasuke's mind and, per usual, he stopped himself from thinking too much and started getting ready for school. When he was all dressed and ready, he went outside to wait for Kakashi. Kakashi was late as always but he didn't have the energy to be annoyed.

They didn't say anything more than a "good morning" and a "hn" on the way to school. When getting into the main building, Sasuke sighed and walked to English. The classroom was noisy already when he got near the door. Walking in, he saw that most of the class was crowded together minus Karin, Jugo, and Suigetsu who weren't even there.

"Hey, Sasuke," Sakura greeted him. Unfortunately, this made Naruto notice he was there.

"Sasuke. Come over here. Don't be an antisocial jerk." Now, the crowd was looking at him too. Sasuke frowned but having no energy to argue, he dicided it would be better to just comply and walked to the group of people.

Kiba smiled teasingly. "Surprised the emo even came to school." It would've been offensive to most but, again, Sasuke had no energy to argue. Shino looked at Kiba and said,

"You're wrong, Kiba. He came here because he had no where else to go just like us. He has no choice but to be here."

Kiba had a look of interest on his face. "Speaking of that, why were you guys expelled?" Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I got expelled because I got in trouble for talking too much. Also, the teachers got tired of me arguing with them."

Hinata looked at Naruto thoughtfully. Sakura looked at Hinata in interest. "Actually, why did you get expelled? I can't imagine you getting in a lot of trouble." Hinata looked down, embarrassed. "I didn't get expelled. I-I had to go here because.. of.. social anxiety," she ended quietly.

Naruto looked surprised. "Really? I didn't know you could go here if you weren't expelled." Sasuke gained some energy back and replied, annoyed, "Do you not know anything about this school, idiot?" Sasuke huffed, "at the very least, it was said when the principal interviewed you." Most likely, she told everyone else what she told him.

Kiba laughed, Shikamaru half-smiled, and Sakura agreed with Sasuke. Naruto looked like the whole world was against him. "Hey, jerk! Not everyone listens to lectures that long. They're boring, y'know!" Sasuke "hn"ed and Ms. Kurenai entered the room.

"Alright. Everyone take your seats and I'll do roll call." Sasuke spotted Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo. They must have come in while everyone was talking. He decided to sit next to Jugo as he was the quietest of all of them.

Jugo nodded at Sasuke as he took a seat next to him. Sasuke "hn"ed back and waited for roll call to end to listen to music.

English, math, and history ended pretty quickly. By the time lunch came around, Sasuke followed the same routine he had yesterday by following Suigetsu to the abandoned house.

The weather was warm with a cool breeze. Sasuke wasn't sure what they would do when winter came. When they got to the house, Suigetsu made sure to avoid getting hit by the door and they made themselves comfortable when they got in.

"Got any cigs?" Suigetsu asked. Karin nodded and took out a pack of Marlboro reds. "Here." She handed one to Suigetsu and one to Jugo, then looked at Sasuke. "You sure you don't want one?" Sasuke thought about it but decided against it with the same argument he had with himself last time.

"Okay," said Karin. Suigetsu sucked in a breath and held the smoke in, then released. "You are really missing out here, Sasuke. But, more for us, I guess." Suigetsu finished his cigarette and started talking again. "If shit ever gets hard, though, we have shit for you. If you ever need it, that is."

Sasuke didn't say anything. Karin checked her phone.

"Alright. Five minutes until our next class. Let's hurry." She sprayed air freshener on them and they all fast walked to class.

The last classes went by smoothly and school was over. Sasuke quickly walked to Kakashi's classroom so he could get home as soon as possible. Kakashi gave a look that said he was prepared for something. Sasuke thought nothing of it and followed him to the car.

The silence had a sad undertone to it and continued all the way to Kakashi's car. After getting in the car, Kakashi turned to him. "Did you hear about Itachi?" Sasuke felt panic take him and calmed himself down. "No. What do you mean? What happened?"

Kakashi looked slightly surprised. "He didn't tell you?" The feeling of panic was replacing with relief as Itachi was still clearly alive but, at the same time, alarm and annoyance came.

Annoyance because Itachi was always at work so he didn't tell him, which Kakashi should've known. Alarm came because something big was clearly happening and he didn't know how bad it was. "Itachi's going on a big business trip and won't be back for a while."

Now, Sasuke was surprised. Itachi was working at a fairly small business where they would sell items online at a lower price. They were large enough to have a building but small enough to only have one.

The business was like the Dollar Store and Amazon put together.

Sasuke was confused because he had no idea when it got big enough for a business trip. But, for now, what was most important was how long Itachi would be gone. Kakashi, knowing the next question, answered.

"I don't know how long he'll be gone for. If you didn't know, Itachi was recently updated as a manager." Sasuke's eyes widened. "They're wanting to make a new building in the next state over. Itachi will call me when he gets a rough estimate of how long it'll be. In the meantime, you'll be staying with me at my house."

Sasuke felt bad as he thought of the times Itachi was home but couldn't talk to him because he was asleep. Memories locked in his head started coming to light as he saw images of his parents' murder. He tried to shake the images out of his head but they stayed, haunting him.

He saw his mother's head, bloody and almost detached from its body. There was a thick layer of skin holding it to the rest of her neck.

There was a bloody axe next to it and whoever cut her head off must've not been able to do it all the way. Her lips were cut at the corners and staples were holding them up to make her smile.

Her legs were broken badly as the bones protruded at different angles, making her legs look zigzagged. Her arms were severed off at the elbows and every single finger was cut off. The person who killed her stapled her fingers all over the wall in front of Sasuke, making them point at him.

Sasuke didn't know what to do. He wasn't sure if he should make sure she is alive or if he should just get over there. He was frozen.

"You okay?" Kakashi startled Sasuke out of the memory of his parents' dead bodies. Sasuke was more than grateful for this and tried to stop thinking about it. "I figured you wouldn't want me to touch your stuff so I'll let you get it."

Sasuke looked out the window and realized they were at his house. Pretending he knew that all along, he got out of the car and went into the house. After getting a couple suitcases from the garage, he packed all of his clothes and accessories in one and all the items he wanted to have with him in the other.

Halfway through after packing the second suitcase, he spotted a box he'd kept in his bookshelf for years. Feeling terrible from the memories, he decided to open it. There were several razor blades in the box that he'd kept over the years for just in case.

Feeling really unstable, he grabbed a few for if he ever needed it. He used to cut himself all the time when he was in middle school but after Itachi found out, it changed to several times a year.

He thought he'd be able to just stop but there always ended up being moments where he had to cut himself to keep from committing suicide.

He felt a bit bad for considering cutting again but he knew how to hide it. Also, because Itachi would be busy, if Kakashi found out, he wouldn't be able to do much about it since Itachi wouldn't be around. All Kakashi could do was telling him to stop and that Itachi would be upset when he got back.

Sasuke already wore long sleeves all the time so it wouldn't seem suspicious to be wearing them. After finishing packing, Sasuke put the suitcases in the back of Kakashi's car and got in. It'd been a while since he'd slept over at Kakashi's place so he decided to enjoy it because it would get old really quick.

It took 5 minutes to get to Kakashi's house. His house was medium sized and dark blue on the outside. It was brown on the inside of it. Kakashi never really looked like the type of person to like dogs, let alone take good care of them because of how lazy he was.

In reality, he owned a few dogs and often trained dogs that needed to get used to other dogs so there wouldn't be problems when they went home with their owners. Sasuke heard the familiar sound of paw marks on the door when they walked up to it.

All of Kakashi's dogs were familiar with people and didn't bite or bark. Sasuke prepared himself for the dogs to jump up on him when Kakashi opened the door. Luckily, as the door swung open, Kakashi stepped in first and got most of the bombardment.

"You can choose which room you want," Kakashi told Sasuke. His house had 3 rooms but he lived alone so there were 2 free rooms. Sasuke chose the room with a bathroom attached to it and unpacked everything within 2 hours.

The feeling of instability hit him again after unpacking and he thought of cutting himself for the second time that day. He wanted to do everything he could to not think about the murders.

He knew if he didn't cut now, he'd do it later.

Sighing, Sasuke took a blade from a pocket in the suitcase and walked to the bathroom. After locking the door behind him, he sat against the door and slid his left sleeve up. There were hundreds of scars all over his arm. Older scars were white and newer scars were tinted pink.

He chose a spot in the middle of his arm and made a small cut, testing how sharp the blade was. It was slightly dull but would do. He was so stressed that he decided to make it really painful.

Tilting the blade so the edge was pointing to his skin, Sasuke put all of his hand's strength into the blade and started dragging it slowly. He felt searing pain and continued dragging the blade across his skin.

An indent started forming on his hand because of how hard he was pressing the blade into his skin. Sasuke stopped after his hand was shaking from the adrenaline, pain, and strength he was putting into the blade. Then, he threw it aside. The cut was so deep that he could see the white fatty layer of his skin before blood started filling it.

The cut was about an inch wide and a few inches long. Sasuke felt much better after the cut and felt like he deserved being hurt. Itachi probably wanted to him many times but he ignored him by sleeping. He felt at fault for his parents' deaths too.

If he hadn't gone to Naruto's house, he would've been there and he could try defending them.

He should've died with them. Sasuke started feeling extremely stressed out again and picked the blade back up.

Rather than doing another deep and large cut, he started cutting everywhere on his arm. Left, right. Up, down. Criss crossed. He didn't care. He just wanted to hurt and bleed. When he was done, he took a paper towel, cleaned up some of the blood, and washed the paper towel down the toilet.

When reentering his room, he took a few sleeping pills and went to sleep. In his dreams, he saw his mother walking toward him and being angry with him.

She didn't say why she was upset but Sasuke knew it was because he let her and his father die.

Sasuke apologized and cried. She had a soft look on her face now. "There's nothing you could've done about it." Sasuke still felt terrible.

There was a knock on Sasuke's door and he woke up. "It's time for school, Sasuke. Do you want me to carry you to the livingroom to help wake you up?" Sasuke glared at Kakashi and sat up. He knew Kakashi really would carry him to the livingroom to wake him up if he didn't get up. So, he reluctantly got out of bed.

Sasuke wasn't used to being cooked breakfast in the morning so he took a shower and got ready before going to the livingroom. There was toast, jam, and tomatoes on the table. Kakashi must've picked the tomatoes out for him.

"Is this type of breakfast to your liking?" Asked Kakashi. Sasuke gave a "hn" in both an affirmation and a thanks. "Ready for school?" Sasuke frowned. "I feel the same," said Kakashi.

When they finished eating, they walked to the car. On the way to school, Sasuke thought about his dream. Even though his mother forgave him in it, he still felt terrible. He didn't want to think of what happened in the first place. No matter what happened in the dream that he'd had of what happened, he always considered them to be nightmares.

The worst part was that now he was afraid of sleeping. Sleep was his biggest escape from his thoughts and now he couldn't trust sleep anymore. He didn't know what to do. Self harm helped only temporarily. Then, he thought back to when Suigetsu offered some drugs to him.

Doing drugs really didn't sound like a bad idea anymore. Itachi wasn't around so it wasn't like he'd face his disappointment and he honestly felt a little abandoned by him. It was like he was never around in the first place now Sasuke literally had to live with Kakashi because he was in a different state.

He felt like he cared more about his business than him. Sasuke thought about it some more and decided he'd try smoking. If he didn't like it, he wouldn't do it again. He thought that it was worth it to at least try. If it made him feel better, he wouldn't have to kill himself when shit started getting even worse.

Sasuke figured that doing drugs and getting caught would be less upsetting to the people around him than if he were to commit suicide. When they got to school, Sasuke walked the halls with a little more purpose than the day before.

The classes passed quickly as Sasuke felt a bit nervous over possibly smoking during lunch. Naruto and the others tried talking to him but he avoided them like the plague. He decided that when lunch came, he'd play it cool. When lunch finally did come, he got in line with Suigetsu like usual and on their way to the abandoned house, he got Suigetsu's attention.

"Do you have any cigarettes? I was thinking about trying smoking." Suigetsu looked surprised and then smiled as if he felt what he said on a personal level, all the while smiling teasingly. "My dude," Suigetsu patted Sasuke's shoulder, "now you're talkin. This is gonna be great. You're gonna love it."

Sasuke wanted to glare at him for patting his shoulder but just continued walking to the abandoned house.


	4. Dependency

When Suigetsu and Sasuke made it to the abandoned house, Sasuke prepared himself for some teasing from Karin too.

They wouldn't like to admit it but Suigetsu and Karin often had similar thoughts on things.

Suigetsu knocked on the door and Karin swung it open. "Guess what, guys? Sasuke's gonna try smoking," Suigetsu announced excitedly and walked in the house.

Karin turned to Sasuke with an excited look on her face.

Sasuke wished they would stop acting as if he was walking for the first time ever. Sasuke closed the door behind him and sat on Jugo's left side. Jugo gave him a concerned look but didn't say anything.

Karin took her bag and sat to Jugo's right while Suigetsu sat to Sasuke's left. She pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds. "Okay," said Karin, pushing herself to be in front of Sasuke, "here. We'll show you how to do it."

Karin took out a cigarette and held it in front of Sasuke while pointing to the orange part of the cigarette. "This is where you put your mouth and also where you hold it. When lighting the cigarette, suck on it like a straw rather than breating in. Do you get it?"

Sasuke nodded. "If you need

help, tell us." Another nod. "Okay," said Karin, handing him the cigarette and a lighter. "Here you go." Suigetsu turned to him. "Also, Karin forgot to say this, but you're probably gonna cough pretty bad so be careful not to burn yourself."

"Hn," Sasuke replied. His hands were a little shaky and he thought about how shitty life was, which pushed him to not care about any bad outcome that could come out of smoking.

His hands were no longer shaky and he brought the orange part of the cigarette to his his mouth. Then, Sasuke flicked the lighter and hovered the fire over the cigarette. Putting it closer, he sucked on the cigarette as smoke was coming from the end of it.

He removed his thumb from the lighter and tried breathing the smoke he sucked in out of his mouth. Without realizing there was still some smoke in his mouth, he breathed in and coughed. It felt like he had a cold. "Are you okay," Suigetsu asked, patting Sasuke's back.

Sasuke didn't answer and kept clearing his throat. All he could think was that his lungs were irritated and his lungs were no longer clean. He didn't know if he should stop smoking to stop coughing or if he should keep smoking to get his lungs used to the smoke.

Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo weren't freaking out so he figured his life wasn't in danger. Plus, Suigetsu told him he would cough. Decision made, Sasuke put the cigarette up to his mouth again and breathed in.

He coughed even harder this time and a good feeling hit him with it. So, he continued.

Suigetsu pat his back whenever he coughed and Jugo held onto his shoulder. After a few more puffs, Sasuke didn't cough anymore and was able to gauge how deep of a breath he could take without coughing.

Then, the cigarette was finished. And, he felt...good. Good. "So, how was it?" Asked Karin. Sasuke nodded. "Hn." Suigetsu got up and looked at him. "I know, right? Just wait till you try weed. If you think cigarettes are great.."

Sasuke wasn't sure if he wanted to smoke marijuana yet. He just smoked a cigarette for the first time and he wasn't sure how helpful they'd be in the long run. Maybe cigarettes would be enough. "Okay," said Karin. "We should head to class."

On the way to class, Karin sprayed perfume on all of them.

They were having P.E. next, which didn't make Sasuke very happy but he had more energy after smoking so he figured he'd just deal with it. Besides, at least they didn't have to wear stupid P.E. uniforms.

Since P.E. was outside, they decided to just meet the rest of the class at the field. When they got there and Mr.Gai asked why they weren't in the classroom, they said they thought it would be okay to meet the class in the field.

Mr.Gai let it go with a warning. For P.E., they had to get into teams of four sorted by Mr. Gai. Sasuke got stuck with Suigetsu, Naruto, Shikamaru. They were supposed to do a series of racing back and forth, 10 jumping Jack's, 10 burpees, and army crawling back and forth once.

The team who finished first would win. Kiba's team won, not that anyone really cared. When they finished, they had free time for the rest of the class. Before Sasuke could go hang out with Suigetsu, Jugo, and Karin, Naruto ran up to him.

"Hey. You didn't hang out with us before, jerk. Hang out with us now." Sasuke wanted to argue but knew Naruto would keep bothering him if he didn't go with him. "Fine," said Sasuke.

Naruto grinned and grabbed Sasuke's arm to hurry him along. Sasuke quickly retaliated, remembering the cuts. Naruto looked concerned and let go of his arm. "What's wrong?" Sasuke tried to pretend nothing was wrong and shook his head.

He felt dumb when looking at Naruto because of fucking course he wouldn't let it go without an explanation.

Sasuke quickly came up with a reply to avoid any further suspicion. "I just don't want you to drag me across the field. I don't have as much energy as you, you know."

It wasn't the best excuse but Naruto decided to let it go for now and 'for now' was good enough for the time being. "Dude. Come look at this. Gaara's fucking crazy," said Kiba as Naruto and Sasuke walked up to the group.

Choji was holding a phone and replayed the video they were watching. In the video, Gaara was arguing with a teacher.

Then, he got up, pulled his desk up and onto his shoulder.

"Aw, shit," said Naruto, knowing the telltale signs of when an argument goes wrong. Then, Gaara walked over to a window and threw the desk into it, shattering glass. Everyone in the classroom got up from their desks and those who were near the window ran from it.

"After that, I told Gaara," said Choji after grabbing a potato chip, "you're not you when you're hungry. And he almost punched me." Shikamaru, putting two and two together, said, "So, he's going to go here now, huh?"

"Yeah," said Kiba. Naruto smiled. "Can't wait to see him again." Shikamaru nodded. "Temari and Kankuro will probably purposely get expelled so they can be with him." Naruto looked at Shikamaru as if he was Einstein.

"Oh. Yeah. That's right. They follow him everywhere. I wouldn't put it past them to get purposely expelled to be with him either." There was a yell behind them and they all turned around to see Mr.Gai. "What did he say?" Asked Ino.

"I don't know. I couldn't hear him," replied Sakura. "P.E. is probably over," said Shino. "Awe. Okay," Naruto said, clearly disappointed. They started walking back, passing Neji who sat against the fence with Hinata and Rock Lee who was still exercising.

The last classes passed by fine and when school was over, Sasuke decided to just wait for Kakashi at his car instead of going to his classroom. To make sure Kakashi knew where he was, he sent a quick message and waited for him.

Kakashi met Sasuke and unlocked the car. While driving to his house, he asked Sasuke how school was. "It wasn't too bad," said Sasuke. Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Hmmm. 'Wasn't too bad.' What happened for today to be so good?" Sometimes, Sasuke wished Kakashi knew him so well.

If Sasuke kept talking, Kakashi would get more suspicious as he'd recognize it as an excuse. Kakashi and Naruto were different in those ways.

When Naruto was suspicious of something happening, he'd listen to Sasuke's excuses and let the issue slide until more and more suspicious things happened. Then and only then, Naruto would confront Sasuke and ask what was up.

When Kakashi was suspicious of something happening with Sasuke, he'd use the implied evidence that Sasuke unknowingly gave and would confront him with it. He knew him too well and although Naruto knew him well too, Kakashi would confront Sasuke the second he thought something was up.

The less Sasuke talked, the less information Kakashi could use against him. He already messed up with talking too much about school, which was out of character. Both he and Kakashi knew Sasuke never said something as positive as "wasn't too bad" about school.

So, Sasuke looked out his window and kept his mouth shut. "Hmmm. You're being awfully quiet now." Sasuke wouldn't budge. "Are you dating someone?" Sasuke was caught in a death trap.

If he denied it, Kakashi might catch onto something else.

If he remained quiet, Kakashi would bother him by constantly asking him who he was dating. Sasuke thought about the best away out of both situations and decided that saying "no" wouldn't do any harm.

"No," replied Sasuke, hoping he'd let it go. "Hmmm. Okay," said Kakashi. Sasuke felt victorious. He knew this wasn't the end of it but if he kept quiet whenever Kakashi tried to pry, he might eventually give up.

When they got to the house, Sasuke went straight to his room. Looking at his bed honestly hurt a little bit because he could no longer trust sleep. He didn't know what to do. He was starting to feel like crap again. If only he had a cigarette. Smoking would help.

Sasuke had some money that he'd saved from his last birthday. He'd probably ask Karin if he could get a pack of of cigarettes tomorrow. That would be good. It would get him through the month. And the times he couldn't smoke, he could cut himself.

Now was one of those times. He took the biggest razor blade he'd brought and went to the bathroom. He sat against the door after locking it and thought about where to cut. Naruto was getting suspicious and he needed to make sure that if Naruto checked his arms, he'd be clean from any cuts.

Sasuke still wanted to cut on his arm though. He compromised by cutting on his shoulder. If Naruto or anyone else checked his arms, they likely wouldn't try checking his shoulders. Sasuke rolled his left sleeve all the way up. It helped that his sleeves were quite loose.

Sasuke held the blade up to his skin and tried to find a spot without scars but at this point, 80% of his arms were covered in scars. He gave up and started going on a cutting frenzy all over his shoulder. The cuts bled in clusters as he tried covering his shoulder with cuts.

He wanted to bleed. Sometimes, he felt more like hurting than bleeding. Right now, he wanted to bleed more than to hurt. Then, he felt even more stressed while thinking about Itachi, his parents, and school. Now, he wanted to hurt.

Sasuke took the blade, tilted it to it's edge and pressed it into his skin as hard as he could. Then, he drug it slowly. Sasuke saw red. When he lifted the blade from his skin, he knew it would take a long time for the cut to heal.

The cut was gushing out blood and looked huge. If he'd gone to the doctor, Sasuke would've had to get at least 7 stitches from it. Of course, though, he would never go to the doctor for cutting.

He'd had cuts worse than this and definitely wouldn't die. The only problem was how long it would take for it to heal. On the bright side, he felt a lot better now. After flushing the toilet to make it seem like he went to the bathroom, Sasuke laid on his bed and listened to music.

After a couple of hours of listening to music, Kakashi texted him that dinner was ready. Sasuke smelled steak and felt his stomach growl. Sighing, he went to the kitchen. Kakashi did cook steak. He also cooked baked potatoes.

They got their dinner and sat down together. "So, Itachi texted and said that he'll be gone for at least a few months. They still don't know how long all the meetings, building, etc. will be." Sasuke was shocked. Itachi had never left him alone for that long before.

Sasuke didn't want to look like some over emotional bitch so he pretended that it was fine. He finished his dinner and went to his room, wanting to cut even more. He really need to get a pack of cigarettes so he wouldn't cut as much.

Sasuke didn't want to end up cutting twice in a day. If he did then it would turn to three times a day and so on. Then, he would be covered in cuts. He would definitely get caught if he had cuts everywhere. This was why he needed cigarettes.

Sasuke listened to music for a couple more hours and then took some sleeping pills. He didn't want to sleep but he knew he'd feel terrible without it. He fell asleep an hour after taking sleeping pills and dreamt of blades and cigarettes.


	5. Reasons

When Sasuke got to school the next day, he heard yelling. "Calm down, Gaara," came a concerned female voice. And then, there was a yell that sounded similar to... Jugo? Sasuke opened the classroom door and, sure enough, it was Jugo and Gaara looking ready to beat each other's heads in.

Jugo usually wasn't like this. Sasuke didn't know how to react so he just sat down and waited for Suigetsu to calm Jugo down while Temari calmed Gaara down.

Suigetsu sat down and Sasuke asked what happened. "Naruto and Gaara started arguing which pissed Jugo off. Naruto sat down when he saw Jugo pissed but Gaara started fighting Jugo next."

Sasuke was still slightly surprised and looked over at Jugo. Jugo looked calm as ever. Interesting. Kakashi made Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro introduce themselves before class started.

"Hi. I'm Temari and these are my brothers." Kankuro waved and Gaara said nothing. Sasuke kept cautious of Gaara in case he was the type to pick fights over anything. He went to school with Gaara in middle school but never had classes with him or his siblings.

All he really knew was that Gaara was known for never losing fights and that he was adopted. The first few classes went by with no fights which meant Sasuke wasn't bothered any more than any other day.

Jugo seemed to be angry with himself for trying to fight Gaara and even apologized to him. "I'm sorry for being rude earlier. I assure you that I have no problem with you. I hope you'll forgive me," he'd said.

Gaara didn't seem to really care either way. "Whatever," he replied. It was almost time for homeroom, so everyone headed out to Kakashi's classroom.

But, apparently Sasuke forgot. It was Friday, which meant class counseling. Class counseling started an hour before lunch. Counseling took place during homeroom.

The counselor, Mr.Iruka, brought a fat book with him when he moved a chair to sit in the middle of the room. "Alright. Move your desks aside and put your chairs in a circle."

"What a drag," commented Sjikamaru as he lazily drug his desk to the side of of the room. "Hn," Sasuke agreed with a slight nod. After Sasuke put his chair in the circle, Naruto put his next to him.

The circle was now complete. "So, we'll go around the circle and introduce ourselves. First, you'll say your name and then you'll say why you're here. If you don't feel like sharing why you're here, then you can pass. I'll go first."

"I became the counselor of this alternative school because I wanted to have students close enough to me that they'd feel comfortable with telling me all their problems," Mr.Iruka started.

"If you can't tell," he continued, "In regular schools, the school counselors don't have the time to get close with their students and it's rare that the students feel like they can trust them. It's hard to be open with someone who's a stranger."

"That's why I came to this school. I'll see you guys every Friday and hopefully you'll feel comfortable around me soon. The rules are that I won't tell ehat you tell me to police or your parents unless you're planning on hurting yourself or someone else. Okay. Your turn," he said, looking at Shino.

"Hello," said Shino. "I am Shino. I had to go here because I got expelled from school for bringing bugs and telling teachers they shouldn't be teachers when they make that many mistakes."

Sakura was next. "Hi. My name is Sakura. I had to go here because the school said they didn't want to support my weight loss and my parents were upset that I was trying to look good." So, basically, she was forced here to get better, Sasuke thought.

He stopped himself from assuming too much before but he wasn't surprised. Both her and Ino looked deathly skinny. Then, it was Ino's turn. "Hi. I'm Ino. I got sent here for the same reason as Sakura. They said they'd keep watch over us to make sure we eat a lot."

Both Ino and Sakura looked extremely displeased in the fact that they were being forced to eat. It was Choji next. "Hey, guys. I'm Choji and I got sent here because I kept fighting people who called me fat. It's better to be overweight than grossly skinny," he said, eyeing Sakura and Ino.

"Hey! At least we're not gonna get diabetes, fatso!" Ino yelled and stood up to point at Choji. Choji's face turned red in anger and got up too. Shikamaru quickly held Choji back before he said anything he couldn't take back.

Mr. Iruka looked terribly annoyed but took a deep breath and calmed down. "Choji, apologize to Ino and Ino, apologize to Choji." Ino crossed her arms and Choji looked like he wanted to argue but he apologized anyway. "It's fine, Choji," said Ino, "and I'm sorry for calling you fatso."

Choji accepted hesitantly. "Very good. Next?" Shikamaru sighed tiredly, as if he was being forced to run a mile. "I'm Shikamaru and I got expelled for missing too many days, constantly being late to class, and for never showing up to make up for homework I didn't do."

Iruka nodded and everyone looked at Gaara. "I am Gaara. I had to come here for getting in too many fights." Temari and Kankuro didn't say why they were there. Probably because they got in trouble on purpose to be with Gaara. It would be bad if they said they did it on purpose.

"Okay. Next," said Mr.Iruka. Hinata looked around the room nervously. She was so quiet that the room became even quieter to hear her. Sasuke could hear the annoying tick of the clock on the wall. "I-I. Uh, I am Hinata a-and I had to come he- ere b-b-because of my s-s-social anxiety. It's nice to meet a-and see all of you."

"Hi, Hinata," Iruka replied in the purpose of encouragement. Rock Lee started speaking and in comparison to Hinata's quiet voice, it sounded like he was yelling. "Hi! I am Rock Lee! It's great to see all this great, bright youth here! I'm so happy to have such great rivals!"

"I had to go to this school because teachers thought I caused too much distraction and that it would be a better environment for me to be here." He looked exaggeratedly apologetic. Mr. Iruka smiled and nodded to Neji.

"I am Neji. I got expelled for ignoring teachers and being to honest for their liking." Naruto was up next and he looked a little nervous. The nervous look changed to one of being defensive.

"I'm Naruto and I got expelled for talking too much, getting into fights when people were rude to me or my friends, for bad grades, and for talking back to teachers. Oh, yeah. And I was also late too much."

Then, Naruto waved his hands around. "But, like, that's not fair. If someone's pickin' a fight with me then they should get in trouble. And if someone wants to talk shit about my friends then they're pickin' a fight, y'know.

"And they give us five minutes at most to get to class. When a class is across the building, what are you supposed to do? Run in the halls and get in even more trouble?!" Sasuke massaged his forehead. "Naruto, stop being so loud. You're giving me a headache."

Naruto looked bewildered. "You're taking the stupid school's side? Of course you would, you jerk." Iruka had to calm down again before speaking. "Stop arguing, you two. We only have 20 minutes left and we have to get through the rest of the class's introductions."

Sasuke only kept quiet because he wanted to leave early so he could talk to Karin about buying cigarettes. "Okay, Sasuke. You're turn." Sasuke gave a "hn." "My name is Sasuke and I'd rather not tell everyone why I was expelled. "

It was none of their business, he figured. Naruto was going to complain about how everyone else said why they got expelled but Suigetsu started talking. "I'm Suigetsu and I got expelled for numerous things."

Apparently, that was all he was going to say so Karin started her introduction. "I'm Karin and I don't see why I should tell everyone why I got expelled." What she said caused a few annoyed looks but she obviously didn't care. Maybe that's what she was going for.

Jugo, luckily the last person, started. "I'm Jugo. I got expelled for getting in fights. I have bipolar and although I like peace, I can't help it when I get angry." Sasuke was actually a bit surprised by that. He'd never seen Jugo have an outburst and he always seemed to be calm.

"Well, that's it. Good job, everyone and next week, we'll start having deeper conversations. You're free to go," said Mr. Iruka. Luckily, they were 8 minutes early because Suigetsu, Sasuke, and Karin didn't talk about why they were expelled.

Everyone was happy to be released early for lunch. "First come, first serve," said Choji. Suigetsu and Sasuke did their usual routine of grabbing their lunch and going to the abandoned house.

When they go to the house and sat down, Karin pulled out a couple of cigarettes and some weed. "Do you want to try smoking weed?" She asked Sasuke. Sasuke shook his head.

He didn't need to smoke weed yet. Cigarettes were good enough for now. "Actually. Karin, do you think I could buy a pack of cigarettes from you?" Karin nodded and gave a proud looking expression, as if Sasuke was all grown up.

"Yeah. Do you want a pack of Marlboro reds or something else?" Sasuke hadn't really thought of the fact that there were all sorts of cigarette brands. Since he'd already tried Marlboro reds, he wanted to stick with Marlboros

He wanted to get more comfortable enough with both cigarettes as a whole before trying others. Besides, he'd never bought drugs before. He wanted to make sure he could 100% trust Karin and Suigetsu.

Sasuke trusted them for the most part but he'd hear enough stories of being cheated out of money to be wary. He knew he could trust Jugo as he didn't have a mischief side to him in the slightest. The only problem was that Jugo likely wouldn't encourage his smoking by buying cigarettes for him.

Trusting Karin on this, Sasuke replied. "Marlboro reds. How much?" "$10 and I can get you two packs of cigarettes and a lighter. I know this guy who sells them for $5 each. I'll give you one of my lighters. Don't worry. The lighter is full," said Karin.

Sasuke truly felt grateful for this. Too grateful, in his opinion. He tried not to get his hopes up for in case it didn't work out. "Here's the money." Sasuke handed a $10 bill to her. "Okay. I can get these for you before school tomorrow, at 7:30. Want to meet our dealer?" She asked we'll gesturing to her, Suigetsu, and Jugo.

Now, don't get Sasuke wrong. He'd met people before who had drug dealers and never had any problems other than not getting what they paid for. However, there was always a dangerous dealer out there.

Someone who wouldn't blink at murder because dealing was a business and buyers were products of money. On the other hand, there was a good enough chance that Sasuke may have to be in contact with Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo's dealer.

He didn't like it but Sasuke thought that, overall, it would be better to meet this guy. "Fine," he told Karin. Now, the only problem was telling Kakashi he wanted to be early without sounding too suspicious.

For the rest of lunch, they smoked together. Sasuke, smoking a cigarette while the others smoked weed and passed a cigarette amongst each other. Sasuke only coughed twice while smoking this time.

He only realized how fucking terrible he felt until he smoked the cigarette, which elated his mood a lot. When they finished, they walked to P.E. Sasuke knew Naruto would make him hang out with everyone if they had freetime in P.E.

Unfortunately for him, they had freetime again. "So, how's Itachi and Kakashi?" Asked Naruto as they walked to the group of people. Sasuke felt a little annoyed that Naruto had to bring up Itachi.

"They're fine," he said, trying to end the conversation. Naruto caught on and Sasuke was glad he didn't push him to talk about it. "Jiraiya has asked about you recently." Sasuke raised his eyebrow.

"And, what did you tell him?" Naruto scrunched his face. "I told him that you're a jerk as always." "Yeah? Well, at least I'm not an idiot." Naruto hit Sasuke on hi shoulder and ran.

Usually, Sasuke would've chased Naruto down and hit him back 10x harder but he didn't feel like doing that right now. Naruto, who made it to the grouo of people, looked disappointed but didn't say anything.

Sasuke made it to where everyone was huddled in a circle. "I can't believe we have to do counseling," Naruto complained, "we don't need counseling. Do they think we're kids or something?" Shino looked at Naruto. "Actually, we are kids."

Naruto was going to give a comeback but couldn't think of anything and stuck with pouting childishly. "Counseling's a drag," said Shikamaru. "Everything's a drag to you," Ino said pointedly.

P.E. ended and, soon, school was over. Sasuke met Kakashi at his car and thought of a way to ask to be dropped off at school early tomorrow without sounding suspicious. When they got to Kakashi's house, he gave up on finding a way not to sound suspicious.

"Can you drop me off at school early tomorrow?" Sasuke sat down with Kakashi on the couch in the livingroom. Pakkun jumped up on Sasuke and he sat him on Kakashi. "Why do you want to be early to school all of a sudden? You're the last person I'd expect to ask that."

Sasuke gave him a half truth. "I want to hang out with my friends. We're getting to school early tomorrow and just hanging out." Kakashi sighed. "Well, I guess I can't deny you that." Sasuke wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"Are you fucking with me?" He asked straight up. "Not unless you're joking with me. And watch your language." Sasuke blinked and stood up. "Okay. Thanks." "What time do you want to be there?"

"At 7." Kakashi nodded and Sasuke went to his room. Sasuke didn't bother to go to the bathroom to cut this time. He rolled up his sleeve and cut the stress of life into his shoulder. When he was done, Saauke laid on his bed and thought about meeting the dealer tomorrow.

What was he supposed to do when meeting the dealer? He figured he'd just act cool. No matter what happened, as long as he left with his cigarettes, he'd consider it a success.

Then, it was dinner. Dinner was quiet. After dinner, Sasuke was tired enough to fall asleep. He dreamt of his parents' murders again.


	6. New Experiences Part 1

Sasuke's dreams were killing him. In his dream, he was back in his old house. After seeing his mom's corpse, he'd frozen. But then he thought that the killer might still be in the house.

He forced himself to quietly tiptoe to the kitchen, trying to find one of his parents' phone. There was a terrible smell coming from the kitchen that was very similar to the smell in the living room. Only this time, it was accompanied by the smell of something cooking.

Sasuke didn't make the connection right away as his mind was running slow from shock. He walked into the kitchen all the way to investigate the smell. Sasuke saw bloodstains all over the floor.

One of the bloodstains led to the oven while others led to the refrigerator, trashcan, and counter. Sasuke followed the stains leading to the oven and had a terrible feeling.

Something was telling him that he would regret opening the oven for the rest of his life if he did it. But Sasuke was in a trance. He felt like he had to open it. He NEEDED to open it to find what was in there.

Sasuke didn't know how to use ovens so he opened it without turning the heat off. A blast wave of heat hit his face and he almost closed the oven. The numbness from the terror of seeing his mother's mutilated corpse overrode his survival instincts.

Sasuke opened the door all the way and what he saw scared him- no-it horrified him. There, in the oven, was a crispy brown head that looked like a cooked chicken. Sewed to it was two legs that held the head up.

Too scared to check what was in the fridge, Sasuke ran out of the house and frantically knocked on his neighbor's door. When the lady answered the door, he explained everything that happened without details.

Then, Sasuke woke up.

Sasuke had forgotten that he was supposed to be at school early when Kakashi woke him up. Even though that was true, he still woke up early. The nightmare of his parents had him practically leaping with glee that he was woken up.

Sasuke got ready for school, packed a blade for in case he needed it, and got dropped off. Apparently, Kakashi wanted to go do some things before coming to school himself. That was good in his case.

Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo were at the front of the school. Luckily, it was a warm day so it was the perfect temperature that morning. "Let's go," Suigetsu said impatiently, "I need to buy some Hydros."

Karin pushed her glasses up and glared at him. "Shut up, Suigetsu. We get there when we get there. Let's go." Suigetsu looked appalled. "I said 'let's go' too but you got mad at me, you hypocrite."

Karin grit her teeth and started walking. Suigetsu chuckled and turned to Sasuke. "Women, am I right?" Sasuke didn't say anything. "So, who is it we're meeting?" He asked.

"It's this guy, Kabuto. He annoys the shit out of me but he's above me so I can't talk shit to him," Suigetsu replied. Sasuke knew he could interpret Suigetsu's dislike for this Kabuto guy in multiple ways.

Suigetsu could see himself in a position below the guy because he was in no position to complain. After all, he bought drugs from the guy. If Kabuto was pissed, he could just not be his dealer anymore.

Suigetsu could also see himself below this Kabuto due to lack of power. If the guy was really tough and carried a gun, then Suigetsu wouldn't be able to risk openly hating him.

Sasuke didn't know which of those or both applied to Suigetsu but all he knew was that he, himself didn't like the sound of either of those. Karin took a left turn and they were headed down the apartment side of town.

This guy either wasn't rich or just thought it was a great place to meet up. The sky was grey; Sasuke was grey. He didn't care if Kabuto would pull out a gun on him anymore. He just wanted the cigarettes.

Sasuke was feeling incredibly down and rubbed at the cuts on his shoulder to be in pain. The pain in his shoulder wasn't painful enough and he needed something more.

Sasuke didn't want to resort to this but he reached behind him to unzip the smallest pocket in his backpack and took out the blade he'd packed. He made sure everyone was facing forward and put his hand under his sweater to cut his stomach.

Sasuke's stomach was more sensitive than his arms so cutting it helped him a lot. When he finished, he put the blade in his pocket.

"We're almost there," announced Karin. The walk to the apartments was surprisingly quiet. Sasuke expected Karin and Suigetsu to be arguing half the time. They took a right turn to a valley of apartments and then kept walking straight.

Sasuke had only been to this area of apartments a couple of times in his life so he had no choice but to trust that the others knew their way back to the school. They took a left and entered a small park that was circled by apartments.

There was a man with silver hair and glasses standing at the park. "That's him," said Suigetsu. Sasuke felt numb. Kabuto shook Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo's hands when they reached him. Then, he took a long look at Sasuke.

"Who is this?" He asked them. "I am Sasuke." Kabuto gave him a troublesome, teasing smirk and held out his hand. "Pleasure to be in business, Uchiha." Sasuke suddenly felt very awake and alarmed. How did this guy know his last name.

Sasuke made a subconscious decision to be careful around Kabuto from then on. Sasuke carefully shook Kabuto's hand. "So, what brings you here, Uchiha?" Suigetsu, who had a surprised look on his face, asked, "Wait. Kabuto, you know him?"

Kabuto answered the question with another teasing smirk. "I need some cigarettes," Sasuke told Kabuto. Kabuto's face got serious and Sasuke knew he meant business.

"That'll be $10." Sasuke felt nervous but forced himself to be as calm as possible. He supposed that the fact that he was making a drug deal hadn't really kicked in yet.

The reality of what he was doing hit him and his mind had clear thoughts. I'm really doing this, Sasuke thought; what if I get caught? It was the first time in a while that Sasuke felt a whiplash hit of sudden worry.

He should've thought this through before forcing himself to go. Then, Sasuke felt numb again. A numbness that made him feel down. He wanted - no, needed - a cigarette.

Sasuke looked into Kabuto's eyes with dead ones and no longer cared if he got caught. Karin handed Kabuto Sasuke's $10. Kabuto reached into his pocket and looked around to make sure no one else was around.

Then, he held out a pack of cigarettes. Sasuke looked around to make sure no one was watching as well and then took the cigarettes and quickly shoved them into the pocket of his pants.

Sasuke wasntsure if he should say "thanks" or not and just turned to Suigetsu because Suigetsu was closest to him. Suigetsu nodded at Sasuke and gave him a proud smile.

Suigetsu clearly thought he was responsible for helping Sasuke improve his life through experiencing how great drugs were. "Heh-hey. You're one of us now." Sasuke wanted to deny it but it was true.

Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo were known for being delinquents who did drugs. Sasuke hung out with them and did drugs too. He wasn't exactly sunshine and rainbows and he broke rules often too. Now, he did drugs.

He was one of them now.

"What do you need?" Kabuto directed his attention to the others. "I need some Hydros," said Suigetsu. Sasuke had never heard of Hydros before. He hoped it wasn't an illegal drug. He'd already bought cigarettes illegally.

He didn't need to get involved in the illegal buying of illegal drugs too. Sasuke simply didn't have the energy to deal with police. Kabuto started walking the opposite direction. "Follow me."

Sasuke felt uneasy. He wasn't in any position to piss Kabuto off because he'd just bought cigarettes from him and the dude could either snitch if he wanted or not sell to him again.

Not only that but Kabuto could probably kill him if he wanted to. Sasuke didn't want to die from pissing off a drug dealer. He wanted to die from his own hands.

Reluctantly, Sasuke followed. Kabuto was either walking to a car or an apartment. The first was preferable. If he was trying to kidnap them, he wouldn't be able to fight all of them and cars were more in the public. People would hear you better if you yelled outside than inside.

Anything could happen in a house. Someone could murder him and get away with it for at least a few days. They followed Kabuto and Kabuto landed in front of a small grey SUV. Sasuke felt relieved and his trust in both Kabuto and Karin, Jugo, and Suigetsu deepened.

Kabuto opened the car door that led to the driving wheel and leaned in. Presumably, to find some Hydros. "Aha. Found them," he announced after only a minute. Sasuke slightly wondered what Hydros looked like.

Sasuke's slight curiosity dropped the second Kabuto held up what it was he found. Keys. They were keys. They were going to a house. Sasuke felt annoyed with himself for assuming that the drugs were in the car.

But Sasuke blamed his self hate on Kabuto and felt a sense of resentment toward him. "The house is this way," Kabuto said, gesturing towards a townhouse in front of the car.

"I usually don't show newbies this place but since I know all about you, I could blackmail you easily to keep your mouth shut," Kabuto told Sasuke. Kabuto acted as if it was no big deal to invade someone else's personal life.

Sasuke glared at Kabuto in deep frustration. Kabuto could blackmail him into anything if it was true he knew everything about him. How could he get out of this? Kabuto laughed.

The bastard! Sasuke couldn't hold his anger and swung his arm toward Kabuto. Kabuto didn't even try to block as Sasuke's knuckles came into contact with his nose. The sound of a snap seemed to echo.

Karin gasped in shock and Suigetsu smiled in amusement while Jugo looked concerned. Kabuto just stood there...and laughed..? Sasuke waited for Kabuto to do something but instead, he just got up and walked towards the house.

"You coming? He's waiting." Sasuke didn't know how to feel about the fact that Kabuto kept with his cocky attitude. Sasuke settled with glaring at him again and followed him to the house.

They weren't even halfway through the walkway before the smell of cigarette and things Sasuke couldn't name flooded his sense of smell.

Kabuto knocked on the door and Sasuke felt frustrated again. Kabuto either didn't live alone or this wasn't even his house. The feeling of uneasiness was overflowing and Sasuke just wanted to get everything over with.

The door opened and Sasuke felt severe discomfort over seeing what the person who answered the door looked like. It was a man with long hair and looked sickly. He was very pale and very skinny.

The man definitely looked like he was hooked on meth or something just as bad. Sasuke almost backed out but figured that upsetting this man would be worse than pretending to be fine with him.

This man had definitely killed someone before. He had the air of someone who had no conscience and the eyes of a predator who saw the world as his prey.

Sasuke regretted everything with meeting Kabuto before but that was basically welcoming the event in comparison to how badly he regretted co.ing face to face with this man.

Sasuke felt like a different person; like he wasn't himself. He usually didn't care much about anything, let alone feel so uneasy. He was overwhelmed and didn't have any experience in situations like this.

Sasuke calmed himself down, regained his composure, and put his usual blank look back on his face. Again, he didn't care if he died. Life sucked.

With a new kind of self confidence, he faced the situation head on. He got himself in this situation and he would get himself out of it. He just needed to stay cool.

Sasuke walked toward the man and held out his hand. "I'm Sasuke. " the man chuckled and rather than feeling uneasy, Sasuke felt annoyed. This man was trying too hard to be intimidating.

The man took Sasuke's hand. "Ah, yes. I know all about you. I was wondering when I'd meet you. My name is Orochimaru." Orochimaru's hand was very cold. His eyes were cold too. A cold intense green.

Sasuke was confused as to why or how both Orochimaru and Kabuto knew him but in the moment, he didn't care. He'd find out some other time when the information would come to him.

"Come in. I'd like you to try something." Sasuke felt like he had no choice. He didn't trust this but at the same time, he felt like shit so bad that he honestly didn't care if he died in there.

Sasuke was probably going to kill himself someday anyway so who cares if he'd become a drug addict?

Orochimaru opened the door wide and moved to the side to let them all in. Sasuke, feeling numb, walked past Orochimaru and went inside the house.


	7. New Experiences Part 2

The door opened to a hall that led to a kitchen in an opening to the right and a livingroom at the end of the hall. A pantry without doors was right across from the kitchen. The kitchen was filled with beakers, syringes, and measuring cups. Substances and powders were spread all over the counters.

Bottles of alcohol, prescription pills, and bottles with unknown liquids and powders filled the pantry. This was definitely a drug house. Sasuke felt uneasy but, once again, the uneasiness was replaced with numbness.

He thought about what happened to his parents when he was younger and all the other things that stressed him out. He would wait and see what happens before finding an excuse to leave.

Maybe Sasuke wouldn't get addicted to anything Orochimaru would give him. He walked into the livingroom and pulled out his phone to check the time.

Time had apparently gone way slower than he'd thought because there was a whole hour and a half before school. They'd need 20 minutes to walk back to school which gave them an hour and 10 minutes to be in the house.

The livingroom was rather large for the size of the house. Orochimaru must have gotten work done on the livingroom to make it much bigger than any other room. There was no couch or T.V. in the livingroom.

There were several chairs spread out across the room and a black card table with a deck if cards set neatly in the middle of it. Two chairs pushed under the table sat across from each other.

Sasuke took a seat in one of the chairs that sat in the corner of the room. "Pull up a chair, child," Orochimaru sat in one of the chairs at the table and gestured for Sasuke to sit next to him.

Sasuke, annoyed that Orochimaru not only called him a child but also that he wanted him to sit next to him, pulled up a chair anyway. Suigetsu, Karin, Jugo, and Kabuto each pulled up a chair as well.

"Tell me, why did you bring these children here?" Orochimaru asked Kabuto. "Suigetsu needs some Hydros. I forgot to ask what Karin and Jugo wanted because I thought I'd find the Hydros in my car and then I'd ask them what they need."

"Needless to say, my car is empty and considering they already paid me, I need to give them what they paid for." At least he was trustworthy when it came to deals. Orochimaru made another smile, eyes lit with amusement.

Sasuke didn't understand what was so amusing about this situation. "What's so amusing?" He asked. He apparently shouldn't have said that as Kabuto looked as if he'd openly disrespected a king in front of the king's people.

"Orochimaru is above you. How dare you speak to him with that tone?" Orochimaru laughed. "Calm down, Kabuto. The child hasn't met me yet and doesn't know." Then his face turned to Sasuke with a warning look.

"Don't disrespect me again or I will show you just how lowly you are." Sasuke heeded the warning. Orochimaru had confidence that he could kill which therefore gave him the ability to kill.

Sasuke didn't mind dying but he wanted it to be a fast death. Not the torturous kind that he assumed Orochimaru gave. Sasuke knew how to fight but he felt the need to get better at fighting after meeting Orochimaru and Kabuto.

"Go get is some Hydros, Kabuto." Orochimaru redirected his attention to Kabuto. Kabuto nodded his head and went to the pantry. "Do you know what Hydros are?" Sasuke thought it would be best to be honest and shook his head.

Orochimaru gave yet another amused smile. "Go an and explain to him, Suigetsu." Sasuke didn't notice before but Suigetsu seemed to be scared of Orochimaru. He nodded his head quickly and tensely and turned to Sasuke.

"Do you know Oxycodone?" Sasuke had definitely heard that word before. "Hydros is short for Hydrocodone. They're an opioid and like a sibling to Oxycodone. They're great." Orochimaru watched for Sasuke's reaction but he remained blank.

Kabuto came back with a pill bottle in his hand and a pack of 6 water bottles in his other. "Found them." Orochimaru took the bottle. "Let's take these out of respect for our new customer. On us, of course." Sasuke felt anxious. This would be illegal even if he was of age.

He thought back to how much he feels like shit all the time and he wanted to avoid that feeling as much as possible. Sasuke was suddenly desperate to take the pill.

Orochimaru handed Sasuke a white, large pill and a water bottle. Sasuke opened the water bottle and only gave it a second's thought before putting the pill in his mouth. He couldn't taste the pill because he forced himself it down quickly.

Sasuke felt a bit different after swallowing the pill and was both disappointed and relieved that the effects of the drug weren't strong. Disappointed because it wouldn't help him enough to want to live.

Relieved because he was worried that he wouldn't be able to control his thoughts and actions due to the strong effects of the pill. Sasuke looked around to see if it affected the others at all. Hopefully he wasn't just given the wrong pill.

But the others didn't act any different. Either they similarly felt different and the drug wasn't effecting how they acted or they were used to the effects if the drug and knew how to act normal on it.

Sasuke figured it was the first one. The disappointment made Sasuke feel even more down than before. All of the energy he didn't know he had left him and he slouched in the chair, sighing. It was just another shitty day like all the other days.

Maybe he would kill himself. Ever since 6th grade, he'd figured he wouldn't live to be 18. Sasuke still thought he'd kill himself by then.

He felt like shit every day and tried all sorts of antidepressants in middle school. Sasuke stopped taking his medicine because he gave up on waiting for it to work.

Orochimaru noticed Sasuke looking down. "Here. Have some more. They'll help." Orochimaru offered Sasuke the bottle and he took. Two more pills would probably do the trick. Sasuke took out two pills and swallowed them.

The pills were horse pills and hurt going down his throat two at a time. Sasuke waited for a minute and then lost his patience. "What did you give me?" Orochimaru smiled his usual amused smile. "I gave you exactly what I said I gave you."

Sasuke was confused and frustrated. "They aren't working." Kabuto gave an annoyed noise and Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo gave him a strange look. "They don't kick in until an hour," Kabuto ever so considerately informed him.

Now Sasuke was legitimately worried and didn't trust himself. He took three of those pills and it was his first time on any drug outside of cigarettes and prescribed meds. What if he did something weird? He half wanted to ask Jugo to lock him in a car so he wouldn't be able to do anything stupid.

Sasuke couldn't trust himself with himself so he needed to trust that Orochimaru, Kabuto, or the three idiots he hung out with would help him if he did something illegal or weird when the drugs would kick in.

Having no choice but to trust the people around him, Sasuke knew he'd be indebted to them if they proved completely trustworthy. "Suigetsu took out his phone. "We need to go back to school. We have to go early every day now to make up for how we've been late."

Karin and Jugo nodded in agreement. Sasuke knew he had no choice but to go to school eventually anyways so he might as well go early. "Bye, children. I'll see you all again soon."

Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo nodded their heads toward Orochimaru in both respect and fear before getting out of their chairs and walking out the door. Sasuke followed them out.

"I'm glad we're out of there. Orochimaru gives me the creeps," said Suigetsu. "Hn," Sasuke sounded in agreement.

They got to school in 23 minutes. There was half an hour before class would start. Kakashi had Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo write an essay about why being late was bad. Sasuke was still tired so he put his head on the table and closed his eyes.

10 minutes before class started, students began filing in.

Then, Sasuke started dealing a feeling of ecstasy. At first, he felt it just a bit. Then, the feeling got much stronger and he felt both really calm and really good. He felt like he wanted to talk yet just watch the conversations around him.

There was no way to explain how he felt. One couldn't understand how good it felt without trying the Hydros themselves. Sasuke's thoughts were still his one and he didn't do anything stupid. He was too chilled out to act on any thought.

Sasuke didn't care about a single thing in the world. Life was great. He was experiencing tunnel vision and his body moved too fast for his mind. So, it was weird when he turned his head and his mind hadn't caught up to the fact that he'd turned it yet.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Naruto came up to him. Sasuke didn't feel like answering; he just wanted to sit and enjoy the feeling of chill and strong ecstacy. Figuring he needed to respond, he nodded once.

It was like, Sasuke felt too good to care about answering yet he'd rather not talk at the same time. Talking required using his brain and he was too chilled out to want to do that.

Naruto frowned and walked away. Kakashi narrowed his eyes when walking by Sasuke but didn't say anything. Sasuke noticed Naruto talking to the class standing in a group.

He didn't care though. He felt too good to give a shit about if they knew or not. In fact, let them know, je thought. Let them know how good I feel and how much I don't give a fuck right now. Sasuke was taking everything positively

The world was bright in that moment. He would most definitely need to buy Hydros again. His feelings of trust toward Orochimaru, Kabuto, Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo deepened like a scar on his mind.

Sasuke could trust them. Of everything he'd done and everyone he'd met, no one and not anything had helped him as much as the drugs these people had given him. He felt indebted to them. Maybe it was just the drugs. The drugs made him see everything positively.

Shikamaru looked at Sasuke seriously and turned back to the group of people he was talking to. Sasuke didn't care. Suigetsu walked up to him when turning his essay in. "Have they kicked in for you yet?"

Sasuke nodded more enthusiastically than he thought he would. It was just good to know that someone could understand how absolutely good this felt. He'd had plenty moments where he felt so bad that he thought no one in the world could understand how he felt.

In this case, it was the exact opposite. Sasuke felt so good that he felt no one could understand how he felt. He wished he could share with others how good it felt because there was no way to explain in words what it was like.

There was no experience of happiness in life that was comparable to the amount of ecstasy of the Hydros Sasuke took. The only problem with them was that they were clearly artificial feelings of happiness. It wasn't natural to be this happy.

Sasuke wished he could be genuinely happy in life. If he took Hydros often, smoked cigarettes often, and found a drug as good as Hydros, then he'd be the closest he could get to being happy in life.

The first part of the day passed quickly. Sasuke didn't care about anything and only half participated in things at most. Then, lunch came. He didn't notice the feeling fading away at first. The ecstaxy faded slowly enough to where he wouldn't notice.

Sasuke definitely noticed at lunch though. He was walking to the abandoned house with Suigetsu and a strong, terrible feeling hit him. Hard. He didn't expect it to hirt so bad.

That was when Sasuke realized that this is how he usually felt. Taking the Hydros was like being out of his body for a while and the Hydros no longer being effective was like him going back to his body.

Sasuke had no idea he felt like shit this bad all the time. He always felt like this. But now that he'd felt the exact opposite of that, going back to how terrible he usually felt was so terrible that he almost couldn't stand it.

Sasuke couldn't handle his terrible feelings and thoughts. Luckily it was lunch because he needed a cigarette. He felt like killing himself. Life was terrible and he couldn't manage his thought. His mind was killing him.

The second they got to the abandoned house, Sasuke lit a cigarette and took a long drag off of it, hoping it would make him cough. Hoping it would make him hurt. Sasuke hated himself. He didn't deserve happiness. He hated himself and wanted to die.

"Oh. Yeeeahhh," said Suigetsu. "I forgot. You took three Hydros AND it's your first time taking them. Dude. I bet that comedown hella sucks." So, that was the word for it. Comedown.

Sasuke felt relieved to know that he'd either build a tolerance in the future and therefore no longer have such terrible comedowns, or that it was because of how many he took.

The amount Sasuke took made him feel so good but if this was how he felt after, he'd never take that many again. Sasuke woud just wait and see. Maybe he'd find a way to not feel so terrible during the comedown in the future. He needed to find a way.

The Hydros were the most helpful at making him not feel like shit out of anything in his life. He would find a way to deal with the comedown in the future.

Because he needed to. Unless he could find a drug just as good as Hydros that didn't have as bad a comedown. He thought about it. "Suigetsu. What drug is just as good but doesn't make you feel like shit after?"

You should take a shitton of Lexapro sometime. You won't feel as good as Hydros but you'll be really spaced out and calm. The only downside to it is that you feel sick when you take a lot and you feel hella shaky when taking them."

Sasuke nodded and decided he'd try taking a lot of Lexapro sometime. "Any drug I can think of that makes you feel as good as Hydros has a terrible comedown because the high is so good that when you're no longer high, reality hits and you feel like shit."

Sasuke frowned at that. He'd try taking some more but would stop if the comedowns kept destroying him. "Wanna come with us to buy more drugs during lunch tomorrow?"

Sasuke would usually say no to a question like that but he needed drugs and no longer cared if he'd get in trouble for ditching. Sasuke felt like shit the rest of the day and avoided talking to Kakashi as much as possible both during school and when school was over.

When school ended, Sasuke went straight to his room and took a couple of sleeping pills. Fuck nightmares, he'd thought. He wanted to go to sleep so tomorrow would come by faster. He needed to buy Lexapro to see how well it would work.

An hour after taking the pills, Sasuke fell asleep.


	8. Falling Deeper

Sasuke woke up the next day feeling an anticipation that was so deep, it made him wake up early. He avoided the nervousness he felt. Sasuke liked to pretend he didn't have the ability to be nervous or to care. Although the nervousness was there, this was the best he'd felt in so long. He felt incredibly awake.

It was a feeling that was almost incomparable to anything but drugs themselves.

Lexapro, Sasuke thought. It was almost shocking to him that in just a week, he went from a delinquent in appearence to a delinquent in every sense of the word. He was no longer someone who hung out with druggies but was now someone who was, arguably, a druggie himself.

Even though he'd made all of these decisions himself, Sasuke felt as if he wanted to blame someone for the shit he was putting himself through. He wanted to say that Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo peer pressured him into it. That if it weren't for Orochimaru's menacing presence, he would have felt like he had a choice to say no to the Hydro.

But the truth was that Sasuke was ruining himself. From the inside out, he was hurting himself to death. Something that could someday be taken literally if he fell too deep into depression and drugs. Sasuke wasn't trying to make optimism out of something pessimistic but he knew that dying from drugs would be dying happy.

Enough thinking, Sasuke ordered himself mentally. Sasuke didn't feel like taking a shower so he didn't. Instead, he went straight to the livingroom and sat on the couch. He tried to be quiet so he wouldn't wake Kakashi up. After a few minutes of pondering what to do,he unlocked his phone and decided to listen to music for a while.

Sasuke ended up imagining different outcomes of how today could go while listening to the music. He hated doing that but he also hated not having a plan for if things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to.

Like if Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo didn't actually show up. Or if Orochimaru did end up doing something like pulling out a gun. Or if he tried tricking them. Sasuke listened to music for just over an hour before getting distracted. He turned his phone vertically and went on Facebook.

Sasuke didn't go on Facebook much at all. He went on Facebook three times a week at most. He noticed there were several new friend requests. He clicked to see who requested. Sasuke wasn't the type to have many friends on Facebook. In fact, he only had 57 friends on there including relatives and Itachi's friends.

So, when he saw Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo requesting to be friended, he had to think about whether he was fine with friending people he'd only known for a week. But he couldn't deny that he felt a sense of trust towards them. They had plenty oppurtunities to hurt him and they hadn't hurt him as of yet. Sighing, Sasuke pressed 'Accept' to the three of them.

Sasuke scrolled down more and declined the friend requests from people he didn't know and people he didn't trust. Then, he saw two friend requests that hit him in the face: Orochimaru and Kabuto. Neither had last names. He didn't know why it was such a shock that those two would send him friend requests but it was.

Now Sasuke had to make a choice. If he accepted Orochimaru's friend request, would that confirm their dealer-client relationship? Sasuke wasn't sure he wanted to confirm Orochimaru as being his dealer yet. He was scared that if he decided to quit drugs somedays, Orochimaru would snap and kill him.

But would Orochimaru snap and try to kill him anyway if he declined? Maybe he was being paranoid. Maybe he was giving Orochimaru too much power. But the fear was real. Sasuke didn't know whether Orochimaru was capable of murder or not. Until he knew, he would tread carefully around him.

Sasuke pressed 'Accept.'

He accept Kabuto's too and declined all the others from the rest of the people he didn't know. He wasn't sure what time it was but he was getting tired again so he turned his phone's screen off and lied down on the couch.

Sasuke quickly fell asleep. When he awoke an hour later, he felt more well rested than before. "Why'd you fall asleep on the couch?" Kakashi asked curiously. Sasuke shrugged. "I dunno; just got tired." Sasuke explained vaguely because he was too lazy to explain exactly why.

This time, he felt like taking a shower. So, he did. When he finished, he put on a black long sleeved shirt and black pants. Then, he went to the dining table and ate some cereal.

When he was finally ready, he checked Facebook again. If Orochimaru was as threatening as he thought, then he wouldn't take too kindly to Sasuke ignoring a text message. Luckily, Sasuke had no new text messages when he checked Facebook.

"You wanted to go to school early again, right?" Kakashi asked. Sasuke nodded. "Okay. Then we should leave soon." 'Soon' is a vague word so Sasuke asked how long specifically. "A few minutes," Kakashi answered, smiling.

Sasuke wanted to complain about Kakashi teasing him but decided that, that would be giving into him. Instead, Sasuke groaned and sat down with his arms crossed. "Is Sasuke pouting?" Kakashi continued teasing.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and got up. "I'll be in the car." Apparently, Kakashi was also planning on leaving that second because he followed Sasuke out the door.

When they got to the school, Sasuke walked in with Kakashi so he wouldn't look suspicious. After going into the cafeteria, Sasuke waited for Kakashi to leave and then went outside to find the three annoyances.

He had a mini panic when he couldn't find them at the front of the school but told himself to shut up and to look where he hadn't looked yet. Of course, they happened to be behind the school making Sasuke panic for nothing.

"Hey. You ready?" Greeted Suigetsu. Sasuke nodded. They walked until Orochimaru's house was in view. "I know I should've said this before but you don't want to piss Orochimaru off." Surprisingly, Suigetsu was the one who said that.

The three of them looked at Sasuke seriously and Sasuke nodded, taking them seriously. He would heed their warning. He felt grateful that they told him to be careful because now he knew Orochimaru was truly someone he didn't want to fuck with.

Sasuke took this as his chance to get more details about Orochimaru. "What does he do? Like, does he come after you if you don't pay up?" The three of them glanced at each other and then quickly glanced back at him.

"Yeah," said Karin. "Yeah, and so much worse," said Suigetsu. "Like what?" Asked Sasuke. They shifted nervously and Karing finally answered. "I don't think we should say. I mean it's nothing against you. Truly. Were just, like, scared."

Suigetsu frowned at the fact Karin said he was scared but agreed with everything else. "Okay. Let's go," he said. The four of them walked to the front door of the house and knocked.

Kabuto answered the door. "Ah," began Kabuto in an amused voice. "It's Karin, Jugo, Suigetsu, and that Uchiha boy," he yelled to Orochimaru. "Let the children in," came Orochimaru's reply.

Kabuto opened the door wide and gestured for them to come in. When they got through the door, Kabuto said, "follow me." He led them to the livingroom and once again, Orochimaru told Sasuke to sit by him.

Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo sat down after him. "What have you come for?" Asked Orochimaru. "We need some Lexapro," said Suigetsu, "Sasuke's gonna try it." Orochimaru glanced at Sasuke with a hint of mischief in his eyes. "Oh? I see"

"Kabuto. Go get us a bottle of Lexapro." "Yes, sir," Kabuto replied. Sasuke felt a bit nervous about the fact that he asked for an entire bottle of the stuff. The feeling was quickly pushed away and replaced with him feeling down.

Whatever, he thought, I don't care anymore. I feel like shit so much. I don't care if I die from this.

Sasuke figured that if he didn't care about death then why would he care about anything else? He had nothing to lose. Even if Lexapro had terrible effects.

Kabuto came back quickly and handed a prescription bottle to Orochimaru. "How much money do you have?" Orochimaru asked the four teenagers. "20 dollars," said Sasuke. "Same with the three of us," said Suigetsu.

"That's plenty." Orochimaru directed his attention to Sasuke. "Lexapro doesn't cost much because not many people buy it. I'll give you 5 for twenty." Karin nodded and Jugo nodded.

Suigetsu looked as if he just wanted his drugs so he could get away from the place. Sasuke felt the same. Orochimaru opened the medication bottle and poured the pills out onto the counter. "Money first," he told them.

They each took out their money and Kabuto collected it. Sasuke didn't like that Kabuto collected it but said nothing. Orochimaru counted the pills out and gave each of them five. The pills were small, white, and round.

Orochimaru took the leftover pills and handed them to Kabuto. Sasuke wasn't sure whether Kabuto was going to take them or if he was going to preserve them for Orochimaru. He never found out because Kabuto left the room with the pills.

Orochimaru turned to Sasuke. "So. Tell me, Sasuke; how's your brother?" A cold wave of shock and slight fear hit Sasuke. How did this man know his brother? A plethora of questions came at Sasuke.

Did his brother do drugs? Did Kakashi know this man too? Did his parents know this man before they died? Had Itachi done business with this man? Would it be okay to ask Itachi, or even Kakashi, about this man or would it make Itachi and/or Kakashi upset?

The question that ran a chill down Sasuke's spine, though, was: Did this man know Sasuke even though Sasuke didn't know him?

It was strange enough that they already knew he was an Uchiha but the fact that Orochimaru directly knew his brother was extremely suspicious. Now Sasuke really felt tempted to ask his brother if he knew a man named Orochimaru or Kabuto.

"And don't think about asking your brother," Orochimaru said, reading Sasuke's thoughts. Sasuke took that line as a threat and looked at him intensely, feeling alarmed. "Why not?"

"Because he'll find out you've been doing drugs. He knows I'm a dealer. With a simple mention of my name, Itachi will get suspicious." Sasuke felt trapped now. This man could blackmail him into anything now. He knew Sasuke's weakness: a disappointed Itachi.

"Don't worry about it. I am not a snitch," Orochimaru reassured him. Sasuke felt incredibly relieved at that. But even stranger was the fact that Orochimaru was reassuring him in the first place. Why would he do such a thing? Orochimaru was most definitely not the caring type.

Sasuke felt relieved enough over the fact that Orochimaru wasn't a snitch that he was able to let it go for now. But that didn't mean he wouldn't continue to be careful around him.

Suigetsu, Jugo, and Karin seemed to be a bit alarmed as well but they made a silent agreement to also let it go for now. Karin checked her phone. "We should probably go, if that's okay with you?" She asked for Orochimaru's permission.

"Go on. Do well in school." Orochimaru waved them off and they walked out the door. Tension that they didn't realise was there was relieved when the door to Orochimaru's house was closed behind them.

The relief was so strong that it threw them into a good mood. "I have water," said Suigetsu. "You guys wanna take the Lexapro right now?" Everyone agreed and took the pills while passing the water around.

They started walking back to school while waiting for the pills to kick in. Karin and Suigetsu talked about how they "couldn't wait to be fucked up in class" on the way there. Sasuke just wanted the pills to kick in already.

When they got to the school, there was no one outside. "Shit. Where'd everyone go?" Asked Suigetsu. Karin looked at Suigetsu, clearly judging him. "In class, you idiot. We're late." Sasuke hoped Kakashi wouldn't know about how he was tardy.

Since Kakashi dropped him off early, it would be hard to give an excuse for being late. "Let's go," Sasuke said, interrupting Karin and Suigetsu. They got to class five minutes late. Kakashi unfortunately noticed.

"Sasuke. Why were you late?" Kiba seemed to be enjoying himself and Sasuke expected Naruto to be as well but, instead, he looked worried. A worried Naruto was a bad Naruto because that meant he would ask Sasuke questions until he was satisfied.

Sasuke sighed very loudly. At least he'd be on drugs when he'd have to deal with everyone. "Shouldn't I be the one sighing?" Kakashi asked Sasuke. Sasuke was going to glare at Kakashi but figured he'd reply with "Shouldn't I be the one glaring?" so he let it go.

"I'm still looking for an answer, Sasuke," said Kakashi. Sasuke thought of an excuse and swallowed his pride. "I was hanging out with my friends." Kakashi looked at Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo.

"Why did you find hanging out with friends to be more important than coming to class on time?" Sasuke's pride was really starting to hurt. "I don't know; I just did." Kakashi sighed and Sasuke relaxed because that meant he was letting it go. "Sit down."

Sasuke sat by Jugo. 30 minutes into class and the drug still hadn't kicked in. Like before, Sasuke was scared that it wouldn't work. Scared that he was ripped off.

But come 37 minutes later and in English, he started feeling sick and shakey. The effects were small at first. But then they hit him. Sasuke felt completely awake and completely relaxed at the same time. He felt as if he was so shakey that people would think he was on meth.

It felt good. He felt nice. He would definitely need to do this again. Sasuke needed to be on drugs tomorrow because he had no idea how he'd make it through the day without them. But he needed money.

A vague thought entered his head: what if he became a drug dealer? It was vague but then again, when you give something vague details, it is no longer vague. Sasuke let the thought pass through his mind and stared off into space.

He really needed to do drugs again tomorrow. If he did them, he wouldn't feel like killing himself. Before he knew it, it was lunch time. He wasn't actually hungry and felt sick. He got his food out of habit rather than need.

After grabbing his tray and getting his food, he was planning on going to the abandoned house per usual.

But Naruto decided to stop him. "Hey, Sasuke. You been okay? You've been acting strange lately." Sasuke nodded.

"Come sit with us. Everyone misses you." Sasuke snorted at that statement. Naruto's eyes softened. "It's true. We were talking about going out and getting pizza. I thought you should come along and everyone -even Kiba- agreed."

Sasuke sighed. "Come sit with us," Naruto repeated himself. Sasuke frowned but saw no sensical way out of it. "Fine." Naruto's face brightened up. The two of them walked to the table and sat down.

"Hey, Sasuke," said Sakura and Ino at the same time. "We were planning on getting pizza after school. Wanna come?" Asked Shikamaru. Sasuke figured it would be a good way out of talking to Kakashi. "Fine."

Shikamaru gave a half smile. "You're eyes are crazy dilated," commented Kiba. Sasuke glared at him. How dare he ruin shit? Of all the times Kiba decides to be smart...

"Hey. He's right," said Naruto. "Why are they so dilated? You can barely see any of the color in your actual eyes because the black has covered so much." Shikamaru looked at his eyes and now Sasuke was really getting nervous.

Shikamaru was smart enough to see through his lies. "I don't know why," said Sasuke. "I mean, I had coffee this morning." Shikamaru sighed. "What a drag." He clearly saw through Sasuke's lies but if he was lucky, he'd be too lazy to call him out.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "I thought you liked tea. Not coffee." Sasuke shook his head. I mainly like tea but when I don't sleep well, I drink coffee." Sasuke was just hoping Naruto would drop it. "Oh," said Naruto.

Relief filled Sasuke for the umpteenth time that day. Lunch was over and Sasuke went to the next class. By the time school was over, he'd fallen asleep. The drugs made him tired for some reason.

Naruto made Sasuke ride with him to Louis's pizzeria. Naruto was clearly very excited while Sasuke was just chilled out. When the car stopped. Sasuke saw a car he thought he'd recognized. He thought back to silver cars he'd seen recently.

And then: Shit! That was Kabuto's car!


	9. Confusion

Sasuke stopped dead in his tracks and reminded himself to keep calm so as not to cause suspicion. But it was too late. Sasuke was so caught up in his worry that he didn't notice Shikamaru walking up to them. "What's wrong?" Asked Shikamaru.

Sasuke quickly turned his head to look at Shikamaru. Reminding himself to keep calm again, he replied. "Nothing." Shikamaru's face looked like he was trying to piece things together. Sasuke hoped that that was an assumption without truth to it.

"Hey, guys. Let's go in. I'm hungry," said Choji who was walking up to the group with Ino. "Stop eating so much! Do you not care about looks?" Choji glared at her. "Maybe I don't want to be a stick who's always worried about her weight."

Ino looked absolutely perplexed but before she made a comeback, Shikamru intercepted. "Lets go in, guys." "Whatever," said Ino in a snarky tone. The group walked in and looked to make sure no one else was there before they got the biggest table in the restaurant for everyone to sit in.

Sasuke sat between Shikamaru and Naruto. He hadn't spotted Kabuto yet so if he was lucky, that wasn't actually Kabuto's car. Everyone else came within 7 minutes later. Sakura sat across from Sasuke and Sasuke acknowledged her.

Sasuke stayed alert and kept looking out for Kabuto. By the time the server had come, he'd gotten lost in the conversations around him and forgot to be on the lookout. "So, Sasuke. Where've you been?" Asked Naruto.

Sakura looked at Sasuke sadly and nodded her head in agreement. "Yeah. You used to hang out with us all the time but now, you rarely talk to us." She looked down. Sasuke wanted to groan at the fact that they were putting him on the spotlight. Now everyone was looking at him.

"What's been going on in your life, Sasuke? Tell me everything," Ino pitched in. Sasuke was now not only annoyed but also overwhelmed. "Nothing." He said and deeply glared at the group of people. "Hey! Don't glare at me, asshole!" Naruto yelled rather loudly.

They didn't argue much anymore so Sasuke reacted in the only way he knew: by arguing back. "Shut up, dumbass. You're lucky if we don't get ourselves kicked out because of your loud mouth."

Naruto looked like he wanted to argue back but something stopped him. Sasuke knew that look on his face. Pity. Naruto didn't want to fight back because he pitied Sasuke and didn't want to make him any more miserable.

Sasuke didn't know how to react to that so he got up to cool off in the bathroom. The rest of the group looked at both Naruto and Sasuke in concern. Sakura's face twisted into one of annoyance. "Why did you have to go and make Sasuke upset, Naruto?"

The conversation faded as Sasuke got closer to the bathroom. Sasuke got to the bathroom and opened therr door. Shock filled his face and he felt absolutely stupid. There was Orochimaru, washing his hands. How had he forgotten to be on the lookout?

"Hello, Sasuke." Sasuke was strongly tempted to turn around and leave the bathroom but his pride got in the way. He wasn't sure how their relationship was yet so he didn't know what would happen if he decided to be defiant with Orochimaru.

"What are you doing here, dear?" Sasuke tried to think of a way out of this that wouldn't ruin his pride but there was none. Orochimaru would read through him no matter what excuse he made. "I'm hanging out with some people." "Oh? Those were your friends, then."

Sasuke felt a strange sense of the need to protect. "They're not really my friends. They basically forced me to hang out with them." Orochimaru laughed teasingly. "There's someone I want you to meet." Sasuke felt anxious but decided to go along with it so he wouldn't look like some weakling.

"Fine." Orochimaru led Sasuke out of the bathroom and Sasuke hoped he wouldn't lead them past the table Naruto and the others were at. Of course, since Sasuke's so lucky, Orochimaru did just that. Shikamaru noticed first.

"Sasuke. Where are you going?" The rest of the group turned their heads towards Sasuke and Orochimaru stopped so Sasuke could answer. Damn him, thought Sasuke. "He just wants to show me something real quick."

"Oh," said Naruto, "Who is he?" Why? Why did they need to know everything? "He's just a friend." Sasukr quickly corrected himself because Orochimaru already looked like a crackhead but the fact he was older than them was even more obvious. "A family friend."

Shikamaru saw through Sasuke's lies just like before but, again, didn't say anything. "Oh," said Naruto. "I've never met him before." Good, thought Sasuke. "I'll be right back." And Orochimaru started walking again. Orochimaru stopped at a booth with both Kabuto and a man with a strange mask on sitting in it.

"Go ahead and sit, child." Sasuke sat across from the man with the mask and got a better look at it. It was obviously orange with swirls like a whirlpool leading to his left eye. Only when Sasuke sat near him did he notice the man was wearing a strange tailcoat with a few red clouds with white outlines.

Sasuke was immediately on guard because what kind of sane person wore a tailcoat with red clouds on it? Not to mention, he was wearing an orange, whirlpool mask. "Hello." The man had a surprisingly deep voice. The man revealed a gloved hand and held it out to Sasuke.

Sasuke took the hand quickly, feeling intimidated. "I am Tobi." "I'm -" "Sasuke. I know." Fuck it, thought Sasuke, and asked how he knew. "I'll tell you when the time comes." Ssasuke was so tired of this. If it wasn't time for him to know answers, then why did they keep making him ask things?

Sasuke glanced at Orochimaru who was watching him amusedly. "I'll be waiting for you, Sasuke." Kabuto and the man got up and left. Sasuke was more confused than ever and wished so badly that he had someone to answer his questions.

"Before you leave, let's have a drink." Orochimaru got up and sat across from Sasuke. "Okay," said Sasuke. He didn't really want anything to do with drugs and alcohol right now because everyone was already suspicious enough.

But at the same time, this may be one of his only chances at free drugs and he was so terribly confused that it stressed him out to his core. A server came around and Orochimaru asked for some wine. The server asked Sasuke what he wanted to drink and he said root beer so as not to sound too suspicious.

The server came back with Orochimaru's wine bottle with a cup and Sasuke's root beer. "Drink some of that and I'll poor the wine in you cup," ordered Orochimaru. Sasuke did as he was told while Orochimaru took out a bag of white powder and poured half of it it into the wine.

Shit, thought Sasuke. I'm gonna get fucked up. Hopefully they won't notice. When Sasuke was halfway done with his drink, Orochimaru poured the drugged wine to the top. The wine didn't taste half bad. Sasuke hoped that that powder wouldn't make him do anything stupid.

"What was that powder anyways?" "Some Hydros. I thought I'd give you something more familiar." Sasuke was grateful. Sasuke quickly finished the wine and headed back to the friend group to tell them he needs to go to the bathroom.

He needed to get the smell of alcohol out of his mouth before sitting down. He turned to head to the bathroom before Shikamaru interrupted. "I need to go too," he said. Sasuke glared at him but walked to the bathroom with him anyway.

When they got in there, Shikamaru put on a serious face. "Sasuke. We need to talk."


	10. Confrontation

Sasuke felt both annoyed and nervous. He should've expected Shikamaru's confrontation but for some reason, it hadn't quite hit him yet. He held onto hope that Shikamaru wasn't confronting him about drugs and feined idiocy.

"What?" Asked Sasuke. Shikamaru sighed. "Look. I know your life hasn't been the best but.." He crossed his arms in distress. "Look, you smell like alcohol and that guy you talked to was obviously a druggie."

Shikamaru was never an idiot. Sasuke knew that. Why didn't he cover his tracks better? "Your friends aren't exactly goodie two shoes either. What's been going on with you?" Sasuke didn't answer.

"Sasuke, I know we're not best friends but Naruto cares about you and I've known you for a long time; you're my peer. Why have you been doing things like drugs?" Sasuke felt surprisingly confused.

Why did Shikamaru care that he did drugs? Shikamaru himself said they weren't best friends. Not only that but Sasuke was having a hard time seeing drugs as bad. They'd only done good things for him so what was so wrong with doing them?

Didn't Shikamaru understand that drugs were making him happy? Sasuke asked the first thing that came to his mind. "What's wrong with drugs?" Shikamaru sighed a second time. He was too lazy for this.

"Look. I'm not going to stop you. Not unless it affects the people around you. But addiction ruins lives. One more question before we leave. Who was that guy?" Sasuke started to feel annoyed. "None of your business."

Shikamaru scratched the back of his head. "What a drag." And Sasuke washed his mouth out. Shikamaru's eyes didn't leave him until he left the bathroom. In a strange way, Sasuke felt a sense of trust towards Shikamaru after their conversation.

The sense of trust came from the fact that Shikamaru said he wouldn't tell anyone. But, still; Sasuke should be annoyed with him and not feel like he's trustworthy. Sasuke walked to the table and sat down. He was just glad that was over.

Shikamaru sat at the table five minutes after him and they all finished eating. When they finished, they all went to their cars and went home. Sasuke got in Naruto's car and Naruto drove him home.

Sasuke forgot about being late. Kakashi was waiting for him when Naruto dropped him off. Only then did Sasuke remember. "So, Sasuke. Are you okay?" Kakashi asked when they got in the house.

Sasuke's eyes widened. He thought for sure Kakashi would be punishing him for lying. "You've been acting strange lately."

Sasuke was starting to feel stressed again and scratched at his arm. "Yeah. I've been fine. Just a bit stressed lately because of everything going on with Itachi."

It was half true. He was, indeed stressed because of what'd been going on with Itachi but his behavior had changed because of the drugs.

Kakashi looked at Sasuke understandingly. "I see." Sasuke felt only slightly bad for lying, especially when Kakashi was so cool about it. But it had to be done. For both his and Kakashi's sakes.

"Look, Sasuke. I'm sorry for not telling you this sooner but Itachi might be back soon. I didn't say before because I didn't want to get your hopes up. But after seeing how much stress it's been causing you, I think I should've told you sooner."

Sasuke didn't know whether to be angry or strangely grateful. Angry because Kakshi kept it from him and if he'd told him sooner, he might not have turned to drugs. Grateful because Sasuke was, in a way, glad he got into drugs. Now he had a vice other than cutting if he ever needed one in the future.

An extra vice meant an extra reason to live. So instead of deciding whether he's angry or grateful Sasuke stayed silent and just nodded in understanding. Kakashi tried to read his face.

It wasn't like Sasuke to just calmly accept things. Especially when it came to his brother. But he was also glad that Sasuke wasn't angry. So he left it at that. They both got up and went to their rooms. Depression kicked in again and Sasuke felt terrible.

Stress was really taking over his life. He needed to cut. Sasuke took out one of his hidden razor blades and went into the bathroom. He was apparently more stressed than he thought because when he looked at his arms, he felt the urge to just slash the shit out of them until they were a bloody mess.

He followed that urge and made one large, deep cut on his left arm followed by a series of angry slashes landing all over it. Blood flowed and when he finished 12 minutes later, his whole arm was wet and sore.

Sasuke turned the sink wayer on and washed his arm off. It burned badly. Even worse was when he wrapped his arm in a dry towel. When he did that, his arm was engulfed in searing pain and it hurt so bad that he questioned himself.

Why did he do this to himself? He knew it would hurt. Then; that was the point. To make it hurt like hell. After all, Sasuke deserved it. He deserved to hurt like hell. The towel was stuck to his arm from the sticky blood that was still flowing and he had to peel the towel off.

Sasuke pulled his sleeve over his arm and went to his room. He felt exhausted and tired so after listening to some music while lying down, he fell asleep.


	11. The Party (Part 1)

Sasuke woke up the next day with his arm being terribly sore. He also, unfortunately, woke up a few hours early. It was the weekend which was something he'd failed to notice but he still woke up too early according to how long he'd rather be asleep.

He killed time by checking up on Facebook. He only checked Facebook a couple of times per week and he figured today was as good a day as any to do just that.he scrolled through some posts that were truly a waste of time for several minutes, then checked to see new friend requests.

Sasuke found Facebook to be basically useless. He didn't even like socializing so there was no point. Even so, he still checked it every once in a while to see if someone messaged something important to him. There were no new friend requests from anyone he knew.

Just as Sasuke was about to close Facebook, he got a message from Suigetsu. He contemplated whether ti pretend he didn't see it so he could just go back to sleep, or to actually check it. He decided to check it. He was wary of Orochimaru so if there was even a slight chance it was about Orochimaru, he'd check it.

'Hey,' was Suigetsu's message. Sasuke sighed and typed back. 'What's up?' Suigetsu replied quickly. 'Orochimaru was wondering if we could all go to a party at this dude's place' A small battle started in Sasuke's mind. On one hand, he didn't want to get caught or hurt by taking something dangerous. On the other hand, he could find some good drugs which may be worth the risk.

And, besides, who cared if Sasuke was destroyed? He certainly didn't. Not anymore. Sasuke started feeling triggered and depressed. 'Yeah. Let's go.' He didn't care if he died. He just wanted the pain to go away. 'Alright!' Replied Suigetsu.

'Do you want is to pick you up or do you have a ride?' Sasuke didn't even think of his plans for the day. It probably wouldn't take much convincing to get Kakashi to allow him to hang out with the three. Sasuke considered lying about Naruto being there too.

'Sure,' he replied. Sasuke wasn't the type to show gratitude but he knew he was grateful for the three deep down. If it weren't for them, he might've killed himself. Drugs were saving his life. Again, he'd never show it or say it but he was grateful.

'Kay. We'll pick you up at 7.' Yeah. Sasuke would definitely need to lie about Naruto being there. 7 was kind of late and Kakashi just might let it slide if he thought Naruto would be with him. Sasuke rolled over to sleep some more.

Sasuke decided to talk to Kakashi about it at 3. He convinced himself that he wasn't nervous about telling Kakashi, or going to the party. Kakashi knew the look on Sasuke's face as one of asking a favor. He set his book down and raised an eyebrow.

"What is it?" Sasuke shifted. "I want to hang out with my friends at 7." Kakashi's face got more serious. "What friends?" "Suigetsu, Karin, Jugo," Kakashi looked ready to say no. "And Naruto." Kakashi's face relaxed.

"Alright. But don't be out for too long." Sasuke nodded. "Do you need a ride?" Sasuke shook his head. "Naruto's picking us up." "Where are you going?" "To Suigetsu's house." Kakashi seemed pretty satisfied. "Text me if anything happens, alright?" Sasuke nodded. "Hn."

The next few hours went by quickly as Sasuke waited out front for the group to get to the house. It was actually pretty cold out and Sasuke shivered while cursing them for taking so long. Karin pulled out to the house and Sasuke got in the car.

"Cold, huh?" Asked Suigetsu. Sasuke nodded while shivering. "Ever been to a party before?" Suigetsu asked. Sasuke shook his head. "Oh-ho. This is gonna be fun. You'll see, Sasuke. Parties are awesome and there's usually some free drugs," said Suigetsu in amusement.

It took five minutes to get to the loud, mansion sized house they were looking for. They weren't even out of the car and they could already physically feel the rap music playing. There were at least 15 cars parked outside the house.

They got out of the car and walked to the door. "Do you know who's party this is?" Suigetsu asked Karin. "You mean you decided to go to the party of a person who's name you didn't even know?!" Suigetsu, Sasuke, and Jugo all looked at Karin in confusion

"What's wrong with that?" Suigetsu voiced their question. Karin just sighed hopelessly and knocked on the door. Another group of people (whom Sasuke found to be annoyingly loud) walked up to the door behind them.

A talll man with long, slicked grey hair answered the door. He wore black clothes that had the same symbol on it as the masked man had. Sasuke wondered what it meant. Sasuke looked into the man's eyes. They had a crazy look to them that made him look away.

"Who are you?" The man asked the group. Karin spoke for them. "We're with Orochimaru and Kabuto." The man gave a confused look. "Huh?" Then, he turned his head into the house and yelled. "Hey! Orochimaru! Come here!"

Orochimaru came to the door. "Ah. If it isn't my four amusing children." The man looked satisfied and opened the door wide for them. "I'm Hidan." Then, he turned to the next small group of people.

The house was dark with colorful beams of light hitting the floors to the beat of music. The music was so loud that Sasuke could feel it in his lungs. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust but when they did, he saw drugs and alcohol scattered all over the place. The house itself was foggy from smoke.

It didn't take Sasuke long to notice that there was a certain group of people that stood out. Most people wore whatever they wanted but this group wore the same black shirts with the red cloud with a white outline on them and black pants. All of them shaved their faces so they wouldn't have facial hair.

Every person who wore those clothes gave off a dangerous vibe that told Sasuke to stay away from them. Sasuke followed the Orochimaru with the rest of the group and Orochimaru stopped at a table in the corner of the room with all sorts of drugs.

Orochimaru took out something that looked like an old smoking pipe and lit the part of it with the herb while breathing in. Sasuke stared in interest. He'd been around people smoking weed before but never took a particular interest in it.

Now he was getting a good look at a pipe. It was interesting because he now realized pipes came in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. When Orochimaru was done taking a hit, he passed the pipe directly to Sasuke. "Do you know how to use it?"

Sasuke had witnessed Orochimaru do it so he nodded his head. "Have you ever used a pipe?" Sasuke shook his head in annoyance. Of course he hadn't. "Would you like to use it?" Sasuke was even more annoyed.

Of course he wanted to smoke. And didn't answer. Orochimaru smiled in amusement and handed the pipe with a lighter to Sasuke. Sasuke didn't want to accidentally burn the place on fire so he was careful with the lighter and lit it over the weed. And breathed in.


End file.
